


Past Imperfect

by salacious_crumpet



Series: Fire Meet Detonite [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Nonmonogamous Relationship, On Hiatus, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Supportive Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-09-22 16:25:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 95,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9615902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salacious_crumpet/pseuds/salacious_crumpet
Summary: Republic SIS Agent Theron Shan discovers that his latest assignment is somewhat more complicated than previously thought when he finds himself tangling with a certain Imperial agent and her Joiner husband. ('Fire Meet Detonite' takes places after the 'Shadow of Revan' game expansion and diverges into its own separate canon at that point, i.e. no Ziost, no KOTFE/KOTET so far).A/N: This story is on indefinite hiatus, but you can pick up with these characters again in "Immortals," also found here on AO3.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not to sound shamelessly self-promoting, but this story takes place approximately six months after the end of _The Voices of Thieves and Robbers_ and there are enough references to that story that it would probably make more sense if you've read it first. :)

It might have been a testament to his skills as a spy that Theron Shan was able to walk in through the front doors of Club Vertica Casino without immediately getting thrown out on his ass by security, or it might just have been the fact that it’d been a little over a year since he’d last been on the premises and maybe casino security wasn’t as good as it ought to have been. Considering that the last time he’d been in the casino, he and two others had been robbing the place, he wasn’t really sure what to think.

In fairness to himself, Theron hadn’t exactly been acting under his own volition during his last visit. He had been brainwashed, and the man who had access to his conditioning keyword had been the one masterminding the whole affair. Theron had mostly been along for the ride – and under extreme duress, at that.

Still, he could add “casino bank-vault robber” to his résumé, so … that was something.

This time around Theron was working for the SIS – the Republic Strategic Intelligence Service – and his motivations were entirely on the up-and-up. The casino wasn’t his kind of place – too flashy, too expensive and too damned crowded most of the time – but he knew how to make himself blend in. Dressed in fitted black synthleather pants and a snug white short-sleeved shirt, the first few buttons left undone, he felt vaguely like an impostor (not to mention vaguely ridiculous – the pants felt like they were painted on) in spite of the fact that he was probably one of the more subdued casino patrons. He wasn’t supposed to be eye-catching; he was supposed to fit in.

 _“Any sign of the target?”_ Captain Aric Jorgan’s voice filtered in through Theron’s implants, a discreet improvement on having a communicator jammed in his ear. The sniper – on loan from Havoc Squad, the Republic’s most highly-decorated Special Forces unit – was perched up in a ventilation shaft overlooking the casino floor, scanning the crowd for their target and waiting for Theron’s signal to act. Theron was hoping not to need Jorgan’s talents; as handy as it was to have someone watching his back (Theron had a rather unfortunate history when it came to cantinas and casinos), it would probably be something of a diplomatic nightmare if a Republic soldier took down an Imperial assassin in the middle of a crowded nightclub in neutral Hutt territory.

“Nothing yet,” Theron replied, leaning back against the bar and doing another sweep of the casino floor. Jorgan grunted in acknowledgement and fell silent again. The Cathar had the easier assignment, in Theron’s estimation: he got to lounge around in a ventilation shaft by himself, up high and well away from the crowds. Granted, he was probably cooking up there; the ducts were dusty, so he was wearing coveralls over clubbing clothes similar to what Theron wore (and the sight of the usually armour-clad, stoic Cathar XO dressed in tight synthleather pants and a fitted T-shirt had been … intriguing, to say the least), and the extra layers combined with the fact that heat rises and he was stuffed in close quarters meant he was probably a sweaty, grimy mess. But that’s what the coveralls were for, and in all likelihood Jorgan wouldn’t even need to come down from the vents until the op was over. He was a soldier, not a spy.

Theron, on the other hand, was a little bit of both – but primarily the latter. His job was to locate both the Imperial admiral who was looking to defect to the Republic – along with his collection of tantalizing top-secret intel – as well as the assassin sent to take him out before said defection could occur. Theron had a dossier on Admiral Staxon and had memorized the man’s face, but he had no clue who the hitter would be. In theory the Imperials were just as keen as Theron to maintain diplomatic neutrality, so the assassin _probably_ wasn’t planning on gunning the admiral down in plain view of everyone – but just in case discretion was being thrown to the wind, Jorgan should be able to take down a gunman with relative ease. It’d be a mess to clean up, but it wouldn’t be the first mess Theron had had to deal with.

This was the first time Theron had worked with Jorgan, although not the first contact he’d had with members of Havoc Squad. He’d met two of them – their CO, Major Tigano and his wife, Lieutenant Dorne – during an incident on Alderaan, and they’d been friendly enough. They had been under the impression he was a Republic prisoner of war that they had exchanged for an Imperial spy, and so they had been very solicitous of Theron. The actual circumstances of that transfer were a bit more complicated than that (when were things ever _not_ more complicated than they appeared at first blush?) but the end result was that Theron made it back home to Coruscant, and the woman they’d traded for him had made it out of Republic custody.

Jorgan probably wouldn’t appreciate knowing that Theron had been sleeping with the Imperial spy. _And_ her husband.

Theron Shan had a … complicated … history with relationships.

Fortunately Jorgan didn’t need to know about Miranza Gerrick or Vector Hyllus, and if Tigano and Dorne had mentioned their POW transfer to Jorgan, the Cathar had made no indication of it. Chances were good Jorgan knew about it (odds were Havoc Squad discussed their assignments with one another), but he either didn’t know that Theron was the POW in question or he knew and simply didn’t see it as mission critical to the current assignment. The sniper was brusque and professional and didn’t really seem to give a shit _what_ Theron did, so long as Theron did his job and left Jorgan to do _his_. Theron could work with that.

Off towards the back of the casino there was a bachelor party in full swing, a mixed assortment of young men laughing and drinking and gambling while scantily-clad Twi’lek dancers kept them company. They were among the rowdier customers at Club Vertica; for the most part the clientele tended to fall more towards the high society (and high rollers) end of things, although the days when only the fabulously wealthy and famous could get an invitation to the casino were long gone. Most of the other patrons were clustered around pazaak and sabacc tables, caught up in the kind of high-stakes games that had never held Theron’s interest for long. His idea of gambling tended to run towards the more death-defying side; as a teenager he’d raced swoop-bikes for a living and as an adult he'd become a secret agent – you couldn’t get much higher stakes than the fate of the entire Galactic Republic. Doctor Zywes – Theron’s therapist, a lovely Togruta woman with the patience of a Jedi – maintained that Theron was an adrenaline junkie, an assessment he was hard-pressed to argue with.

Theron sighed and let his gaze drift around the casino again, to every appearance just another bored clubber looking to fill the void with booze and gambling. The tumbler next to his hand contained watered-down ebla (a waste of good beer, but Theron couldn’t afford to get drunk on the job) and he’d been mostly just pretending to sip from the glass for a while now. The drink gave him something to do with his hands, fiddling with the glass a way to fidget without giving the appearance of fidgeting. He wouldn’t mind something stronger to drink – Club Vertica had some excellent Corellian brandy – but that would have to wait until he was off the clock.

He’d been drinking a lot lately. Never alone, of course. Drinking was as good an excuse as any to get out of his tiny apartment and pretend to be social. His mood was what determined which cantina he frequented: if he was just wanting to get out of the house he went to the Drunkard’s Vote, which was within walking distance of his apartment on Coruscant. That cantina was tiny, however, and it was underneath the Senate Tower, which meant there was a reasonably high chance that he would know some of the other patrons, and sometimes Theron wasn’t feeling quite _that_ social. When he wanted to be alone in a sea of people he went to the Dealer’s Den, and if drinking improved his mood (rare, but theoretically possible) he could find a pazaak game while he was there. But if he was feeling especially shitty – if it was one of those bad nights when the nightmares left him sweaty and trembling, and the need to get the fuck out of the apartment (and out of his own head) overwhelmed him – he went to the Silent Suns cantina down in the Black Suns district. There he was pretty much guaranteed to get into at least one bar fight, and the combination of adrenaline, violence and alcohol could hopefully take the edge off his demons.

Theron was the Force-blind son of one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, but a childhood at the knee of a kindly, celibate warrior – his mother’s mentor – had not given him the kind of coping mechanisms necessary for dealing with some of the shit Theron had been through in the last year. And Doctor Zywes was probably a phenomenal therapist when it came to the standard issues most of her patients came across, but journaling, jogging and guided meditation were not especially useful in treating the fears and hang-ups associated with mind control, torture and rape. Theron knew he’d probably get more mileage by being completely honest with Doctor Zywes, but even after a year there were still some things he was only comfortable discussing with two people – and those two people were away in Imperial space.

So drinking was a shitty coping mechanism. So what? He wasn’t drunk on the job, he set (mostly) reasonable limits on himself, and it didn’t interfere with his personal life. (Such as it was. Which was pathetic, but at least _that_ was nothing new.) Doctor Zywes knew he drank – he was at least honest with her about that – and she didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Of course, he left out a few of the details of what he got up to while drinking, but he wasn’t out getting arrested (or killed), so that was something.

Probably.

“Fuck me, Theron, you are lookin’ good enough to eat!”

_Speaking of shitty coping mechanisms …_

Theron plastered a smile on his face and turned to see Ryshan Esselby, a hotshot freighter pilot (read: smuggler, privateer and all-around scoundrel) he normally ran into on Coruscant. Ryshan was … well, ‘gorgeous’ was too weak a word for it. He was tall, muscular and tanned, with artfully disheveled dirty-blond hair, deep green eyes and a neat little goatee and moustache that would have looked absolute ludicrous on anyone else but on him just kind of looked … asshole-ish, if Theron was being honest with himself. But Rysh _was_ an asshole – almost unrepentantly so – and yet he was so incredibly charming (when he wanted to be) that it was almost possible to overlook all the horrendously shitty things he did on a regular basis.

Ryshan was also absolutely amazing in bed, which was another reason people (read: Theron) tended to overlook his utter dickishness. One could be forgiven for expecting Rysh to be an exceptionally selfish lover, given how selfish he tended to be in almost every other respect, but since so much of the pilot’s identity was wrapped around his sexual prowess he was actually pretty damned generous. Not to mention adventurous, open-minded and _exceptionally_ enthusiastic.

Theron had known Rysh was in the casino, but when he had first noticed the pilot he was at a sabacc table surrounded by an assortment of beautiful men and women, and Theron had assumed he would continue to entertain himself with his flock of admirers. Frankly he was surprised Ryshan was still in the casino and that he hadn’t taken the party to a private room somewhere. But a quick look towards the sabacc table revealed that most of Rysh’s admirers were still there – and a number of them were still eyeing Ryshan appreciatively, with the occasional not entirely displeased glance in Theron’s direction.

“Hey, Rysh,” Theron said, opting for a casual tone. As much fun as Rysh was, Theron was working – and frankly, Ryshan was only fun in the moment. Once the sex was done he inevitably did something to remind you of what an asshole he was, and that tended to spoil the entire experience. The last time he and Theron had hooked up, Rysh had tossed Theron’s clothes into the hallway outside his apartment and locked the door, and Theron _still_ didn’t know what he’d done wrong. (If anything.)

Every time Theron hooked up with Ryshan Esselby he told himself it was for the last time. And then, inevitably, he would find himself alone and lonely and drunk, and the next thing he knew he was face-down, ass-up and screaming the bastard’s name. Rysh had that effect on people.

The thing was, sleeping with Ryshan was a form of therapy in its own right, although Theron wasn’t sure he’d be able to explain it to Doctor Zywes (if he even wanted to explain it to her - which he most definitely _did not_ ). Rysh had a particular fondness for rough sex and games of reluctance and dominance, and while that hadn’t really been Theron’s thing a year ago, he had discovered that sex with Ryshan was the closest Theron could get to processing what he had gone through at the hands of Samar, the Star Cabal leader who had held Theron captive for several months. Rysh could do all the things Samar did to Theron – and the instant Theron told him to stop (or more accurately, used his safeword, since saying no and struggling were a part of the turn-on for Ryshan so long as it was all just pretend) he _would_ stop. It gave Theron control over the experience, which was immensely beneficial to Theron – save for the fact that Rysh sucked at after-care, as was evidenced by the clothing in the hallway story. Theron wouldn't have gone so far as to say his hook-ups with Rysh were _healthy,_ but there was something inherently empowering about being at the mercy of someone else and knowing you still had complete control over the situation.

Grinning the slow, lazy grin that was proven to drop panties (and briefs) across the galaxy, Ryshan eased into the space against the bar beside Theron, moving in somewhat closer than necessity required. The pilot was dressed in spacer’s pants and a leatheris jacket not unlike the one Theron owned – albeit in black and dark green, rather than red – and looked a little out of place amidst all the finery surrounding him. With Rysh it was difficult to tell whether he was deliberately trying to stand out from the crowd or if he simply didn't give a fuck about the casino's dress-code, but it was probably a little bit of both. He eyeballed Theron’s drink for a moment, no doubt noticing that it was watered down, then nudged the agent with his shoulder.

“You’re lookin’ tense, Theron,” Rysh said, raking Theron with his eyes. “Tell you what. I got myself a private room upstairs. We get you some of that syrupy-sweet energy drink shit you like and a bottle of top-shelf rum, we go up to my room and I’ll see if I can’t help you to loosen up?” Ryshan squeezed Theron’s ass with one hand to emphasize his meaning, his lazy grin turning into more of a leer.

“I’m on the clock, Rysh,” Theron answered. He shifted awkwardly to hide his body’s response, his damned synthleather pants being of no help in that regard.

Ryshan leaned in close, lips warm against Theron’s ear, “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

 _“Want me to shoot him for you?”_ Jorgan’s voice held a mixture of amusement and exasperation. Theron had almost forgotten the other man was there – and that he’d have an excellent vantage point from the ducts.

“No, I’m good, thanks,” Theron replied, grateful for an answer that worked for both men. He would rather that Ryshan didn’t know he was commed in with another operative; knowing Rysh as he did, the pilot would have entirely too much fun with that information. Theron jerked his chin over in the direction of the sabacc table, where Ryshan’s admirers were still clustered together casting speculative glances towards the two of them. “Besides, it looks like you’ve got a party of your own started already without me.”

“Yeah.” Rysh focused briefly on his groupies, dismissing them with a small shrug of one shoulder before returning his heated gaze to Theron. “But I’d rather play with you.” He nipped Theron’s ear, murmuring his next words against the column of Theron’s throat, “I’ve got a new set of cuffs. I’d love to see how long it takes you to get out of ‘em.”

There was some rather pointed and awkward-sounding throat-clearing from the Cathar in Theron’s ear, followed by a terse, _“Are you_ sure _I can’t shoot him? For me?”_

 _Kriff._ Theron was grateful that the dim lighting in the casino prevented Jorgan from seeing how hard he was blushing, but Ryshan was far too close to have missed it. He inched away from the pilot, deliberately putting some distance between them, and levelled a glare at the other man.

“I told you already, Rysh, I’m working,” he said, pleased to note how steady and stern his voice was. “Another time, maybe.”

Ryshan shrugged, suddenly affecting a bored look. “Your loss.” He pushed off from the bar and drifted back towards his admirers, and their delighted acceptance of his return had Theron shaking his head. Any other man – any other _person_ – and Ryshan’s obvious dismissal of them in favour of someone else would have turned them off, but Rysh made it work for him. Even Theron, who knew for a _fact_ the man was a selfish, egotistical asshole, couldn’t help but be a little disappointed he’d had to turn him down. Ryshan was simple, uncomplicated fun: no strings attached, no chance of commitment or feelings getting in the way of things. The man was almost pathologically incapable of forming lasting relationships and he offered a kind of escape Theron frequently found himself in need of lately.

 _You’re a disaster, Shan,_ Theron thought, shaking his head again. Fortunately Jorgan didn’t feel the need for further comment; Theron was already trying to will the floor to open up and swallow him whole without the Cathar adding to his embarrassment.

 _“Still no sign of the target.”_ Jorgan’s voice was professional, cool; he spoke as if there hadn't just been an incredibly awkward interruption. _“Are we sure the intel was good?”_

Theron shrugged even though he wasn’t certain the sniper was looking at him, and scanned the casino again. “The source was reliable.” He was about to say more when his gaze fell on a familiar silhouette, and he started, straightening up against the bar.

Across the room, close to where the bachelor party was, a tall, lean man in a dark suit lounged idly against a bar stool, his back to the bar behind him. It had been a little over six months since Theron had seen him last, but even with his strange all-black eyes covered by a pair of dark glasses Theron would have known Vector Hyllus anywhere. And if Vector was here …

“Shit,” Theron muttered, craning his neck in search of her. If Ryshan had caused his heartrate to speed up a little, Vector caused his heart to start pounding in his chest.

_“What’s the problem?”_

“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news,” Theron replied, picking up his drink and heading towards the Joiner. If Vector had noticed him he gave no indication of it. “Good news is, I think I know who our assassin is.”

_“And the bad news?”_

Theron moved easily through the crowd, threading his way through dancers and uniformed waitstaff with slow, casual grace. As he moved, his eyes continued to survey the casino; now that he knew who his target was it should be easy to spot her. Miranza Gerrick tended to stand out from the crowd, for all that she was just a tiny little thing. If he couldn’t see her, then that meant …

“Bad news is, I think she’s already with Admiral Staxon.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Theron.” Vector’s voice was warm as Theron approached him, and he straightened so that he was no longer leaning against the bar stool. He tilted his head slightly, giving the impression that he was looking Theron over; with his eyes hidden behind dark glasses it was difficult to tell for certain. “A pleasure to see you again. You’re looking well.”

It was tempting – oh so tempting – to let Vector’s warmth and friendliness lure Theron into complacency. It was _Vector,_ after all: rescuer, friend, lover, one of the two people in the entire galaxy Theron felt comfortable sharing his secrets with. Which was crazy, if you thought about it: Vector and Miranza were spies. And not just any spies, either, but _Imperial_ spies. They should be enemies, not … whatever the kriff they were to each other. _Theron, people make sacrifices for the ones they love._ Vector’s voice, Theron’s memory – six months ago on Manaan, the last time they’d seen each other. Theron was by no means an expert on love (quite the opposite, sadly), but he didn’t know _what_ he felt for the two of them. Was it love when you didn’t – when you couldn’t – see each other without it being some big diplomatic incident? Did he love Vector and Miranza, or was it simply a mixture of gratitude and infatuation, messing with his already messed-up head?

_“Who is this?”_ Jorgan’s almost-snarl helped Theron crash back to reality, snapping him out of his increasingly tangled thoughts.

“Confidential informant,” Theron lied smoothly. “I’m going dark for a bit.” Before Jorgan could protest, Theron closed his eyes and switched off the communicator in his implants, ignoring the pangs from his conscience. This wasn’t treason, not yet. He needed to speak to Vector in private without setting Jorgan after him. If he was right and Miranza was with Admiral Staxon, _then_ he would worry about bringing Jorgan in. Until then, it didn’t serve anyone to have the sniper listening in on his conversation with Vector.

“Where is she, Vector?” Theron asked, without preamble. It wasn’t the first question that sprang to mind, but it was the most pressing. Had he somehow missed seeing her when Ryshan had been distracting him? Was that when she had slipped away with the admiral? Or had she managed to intercept the man before he even entered the casino?

Vector’s smile faltered a little, shifting from warm to guardedly polite. “Regrettably, Theron, we’re currently working. Perhaps after this is over we can meet back here for drinks?”

“Yeah, no shit she’s working. Where is she? Where did she take the admiral?”

Cocking his head to one side, dark brows drawing together in an expression of annoyance, Vector sighed heavily and folded his arms across his chest. Theron couldn’t help but notice the way the gesture pulled the man’s suit tight across his shoulders. He wished the glasses were gone so he could see Vector’s eyes; fathomless as they were, Theron was certain he could still read something in them. Something more than frustration and aggravation with the deliberately obtuse agent in front of him.

“It’s nothing personal, Theron,” Vector replied quietly, his voice barely audible over the music and laughter around them. “We always knew we’d be on opposite sides when next we met. Miranza is doing her job, just as you are. Our affection for you isn’t going to compromise that.”

Theron had known that he wasn’t first on Vector’s list of priorities – how could he be, when Vector was happily married to Miranza and they both served the Empire? – but it was still a knife in his chest to hear the Joiner state it so plainly. The fact that the annoyance had vanished from Vector’s face and voice, and he was instead giving Theron one of his relentlessly patient looks – willing Theron to understand – only made it worse.

“I’m not letting her murder an innocent man just because your bosses need him out of the way,” Theron snapped, turning away from Vector to resume scanning the casino floor, hoping to catch a glimpse of a curly blonde head somewhere in the midst of all these strangers. He knew he hadn’t noticed her before – and while Miranza was just as capable as Theron at making herself invisible in a crowd, he felt comfortable he would have seen her. He didn’t think she could have gone far, however; chances were she was still within communicator range of her husband. Miranza didn’t need Vector for backup, but needing and wanting weren’t always the same thing.

Vector snorted, drawing Theron’s attention again. “Admiral Staxon is hardly an innocent man. One seldom rises to the rank of admiral within the Imperial military without committing the occasional atrocity or two. Still,” he mused, glancing down at the chrono he wore on his wrist, “in any event it’s likely too late for you to interfere, and if things are taking longer than usual then Miranza may be in need of assistance.” A wry smile twisted his lips. “You will find our wife – and the hopefully late and unlamented Admiral Staxon – upstairs, in the private room at the end of the hall. We wish you the best of luck, Theron.”

Surprised at this easy concession, Theron gave the Joiner a hard look. “You’re not going to try to stop me?”

“Of course not.” Vector cocked his head and pointedly looked away from Theron, turning to scan the crowd behind them. “You’re hardly the only threat to our operation, and we at least trust _you_ not to try to execute our wife.”

Theron didn’t know whether to accept the second half of that statement as a compliment or to focus on the first half that suggested he wasn’t the only person looking to prevent Miranza from completing her assignment. Rather than focus on either one, however, he chose to turn and head for the stairs leading up to the second floor balcony, switching his implant communicators back online.

“I’m back,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily – Jorgan would have been able to hear the chirp that announced the re-established connection. “Keep an eye on my CI. We’re not the only ones involved in this op, and he might be targeted.”

Jorgan was silent for a moment, no doubt considering what Theron had said. Then, finally, he growled through the comm channel, _“Am I under orders to protect your ‘CI,’ or just to keep tabs on him?”_ The way he spoke about Vector, it was clear he wasn’t buying the ‘confidential informant’ lie Theron had fed him earlier, but that he wasn’t willing to push the issue just yet. It was something of a relief to know that the sniper was willing to trust Theron's judgment.

“Just keep tabs on him for now,” Theron replied, taking the stairs two at a time, neatly sidestepping some patrons who had paused to have a conversation about halfway up. “He can handle himself in a fight.” He didn’t honestly think Vector was in any danger, but the last thing he wanted was for Jorgan to be following him upstairs where Miranza was supposedly working. The Cathar seemed fairly reasonable, but Theron didn’t feel up to explaining why he didn’t want the other man to put a bolt in the Imperial agent’s head.

_“Copy that.”_

At the top of the stairs Theron turned, pausing to reorient himself. The balcony area overlooked the casino floor, probably providing a vantage point that was almost as good as the one Jorgan had up in the ventilation shaft, if one didn’t mind also being surrounded by dozens of people. There were two halls heading in opposite directions, and Theron realized that Vector hadn’t specified which way he was to go. He could pick a direction and take his chances, or – Theron glanced back down at Vector, seeing that the other man hadn’t moved from his spot by the small bar, his arms still folded across his chest. Theron noticed the Joiner was tapping one of his hands on the opposite bicep, his other hand perfectly still; it took him a moment to realize Vector was signalling for him to take the left-hand hallway. Theron shook his head, amused. It was entirely possible that Vector was being deliberately misleading – that Miranza was instead down the right-hand hallway, perhaps, or that she wasn’t upstairs at all and the Joiner was leading Theron on a wild convor chase. Anyone betting safe credits would say the husband of an Imperial agent was a liar who wanted to throw Theron off the scent.

Theron took the left-hand path, darting across the open balcony and down a wide hallway.

The crowds thinned out upstairs, and the hall was even more empty. Theron hurried past a cleaning droid that chirped and whirred as he went by. The sounds of the casino became muted and indistinct, the music fading to little more than a steady beat that was felt more than heard. His footsteps were muffled by the carpeting, and the near-absence of sound – after such prolonged exposure to noisy crowds and music – made his ears start ringing.

There were a line of closed doors all down the right side of the hall. As he passed them Theron wondered idly if one of the rooms belonged to Ryshan, and if the freighter pilot had finally moved his party upstairs. He could hear anything that suggested some kind of raucous orgy might be going on behind closed doors, but Theron suspected the soundproofing was pretty impressive at a fancy place like that.

Just as Theron reached the last door he paused, turning to glance behind him to see if he had been followed or observed. Instincts finely honed from years spent as a field agent made him duck – just as two darts struck the door in front of him, clattering uselessly to the floor.

At the end of the hall beside the now-disabled cleaning droid was a tall Chiss, arm outstretched to fire in Theron’s direction a third time.

Theron tried to duck again, but the Chiss followed his movements too closely, and he felt a sudden pricking feeling under his jaw, followed by another along the exposed skin of his chest. At first it felt like nothing more than the sting of an annoying insect, but a burning sensation soon spread from where the darts had struck him and his vision began to blur. He staggered, reaching for the holdout blaster he kept strapped in a holster between his shoulder blades, only for the Chiss to close the distance between them and grab Theron by the front of his shirt.

_“Your guy’s on the move,”_ Jorgan announced in Theron’s ear. Theron tried to process that statement, but he was having a hard time focusing and the Chiss wasn’t giving him any time for his brain to catch up. The Chiss slammed Theron face-first into the wall, and the last thing he heard before unconsciousness claimed him was Jorgan telling him that Vector was on his way upstairs.

O o O o O

When Theron returned to his senses some time later it was with a pounding headache and a metallic taste in his mouth, and when he opened his eyes the blinding light of the single bare bulb hanging overhead sent more pain stabbing through his skull, making him groan. He heard someone moving hurriedly, a low masculine voice murmuring apologies, and then the light was dimmed somehow. It was still too bright for Theron’s sensitive eyes, but if he squinted he could open them enough to take in his surroundings.

He was sprawled on his back on a narrow cot in what looked like some kind of janitor’s closet – if said closet also moonlighted as ‘fresher-cum-bedroom. There were shelves filled with cleaning supplies lining one wall, along with a broom, a mop and a bucket. Someone had tacked up a poster of a blue-skinned Twi’lek wearing nothing but the enticing smile on her face, and there was a wall calendar that Theron sincerely hoped was out of date, or his sense of time was horribly messed up. A metal sink and toilet were mounted on the wall almost immediately beside the cot, and in the small space between them was an upended wooden crate that served as a makeshift table. A couple of white tablets and a glass of what looked to be water were resting on top of the table, along with Theron’s holdout blaster and holster and the vibroknife he had tucked away in his sock. Across the tiny room, in a chair angled to face both the door and the cot, sat Vector, a blaster of his own in his hand and pointed at the door. To Theron’s incredibly muddled mind it seemed as though Vector was … guarding him?

“Those are myocaine tablets,” Vector said, gesturing towards the crate with his free hand. When Theron didn’t move he added, “For your head, Theron.”

Theron ignored the pills and focused instead on struggling to sit up. In addition to ridding him of his weapons, someone – probably Vector – had also removed his shoes and his belt, and had unbuttoned his shirt. That same someone had also smeared kolto over the places the darts had stuck, as well as over a tender spot on his forehead. Theron vaguely remembered colliding with a wall before blacking out. He didn’t think the head-slam had been necessary; whatever the darts had been coated in, it had worked fast and he had already been on his way down before the Chiss introduced his face to plaster-covered-duracrete.

“You’ll forgive me for being a little suspicious after your friend attacked me,” Theron muttered, the words coming out slightly garbled as his tongue was slow to catch up. “Ugh. What did he dose me with?”

“Poison,” Vector replied, sounding distracted. He stood, moving towards the cot so he could frown down at Theron. “Our … friend?”

“Poison, Vector?! What the fuck? Am I dying?”

Vector’s frown deepened. Sometime between when they last had spoken and when Theron woke up he had done away with the dark glasses, and now Theron could finally see his eyes. The all-black depths were difficult to read as always, but Theron thought the other man looked both concerned … and confused.

“We believe your implants dealt with the worst of it,” Vector informed him, bending to pick up the glass of water and the two pills. “You appear to have had an upgrade since we last saw each other.” He held the pills out to Theron, letting out an exasperated sigh when the SIS agent didn’t respond. “We swear, Theron, we are not trying to poison you. Again. The pills are for your headache, that is all. Tell us about this ‘friend’ you mentioned.”

Theron reluctantly accepted the two tablets, peering down at them closely. They certainly looked like myocaine tablets, but it was easy enough to fake that. The dull pounding in his head was enough to convince him to give in, however, and he tossed the pills into his mouth, swallowing them down dry even as Vector was offering him the glass of water. Vector’s exasperation seemed to increase by about a thousand percent, and he set the glass back down on the crate and returned to his chair, scowling at Theron.

“Do you honestly believe we sent you into an ambush, Theron?” Vector asked, the exasperation fading into something else – something that rather closely resembled hurt.

“What do you expect me to think?” Theron demanded, trying and failing not to feel guilty at the way Vector was looking at him. He rubbed one hand over the back of his neck, already beginning to feel the painkillers at work. “You tell me where I can supposedly find Miranza, I head upstairs, and the next thing I know I’m being shot at by some Chiss?” It certainly didn’t help Vector’s case that the Chiss were almost exclusively found in Imperial space or working for the Empire, particularly in Intelligence or the military. While it was possible the alien was a free agent, the more likely scenario was that he was working for the same people Vector and Miranza worked for - even if Vector didn't necessarily know that.

“Chiss?” Vector’s brows furrowed. “When we found you, you were alone. There was –“

Before he could continue the door to their tiny closet flew inwards. Vector had the blaster up and aimed, but managed to keep himself from firing when Miranza stormed into the room. She paused to stare briefly at Theron – scarcely even noticing the blaster trained on her – before making a beeline for the sink, one hand raised in a warding gesture.

“Sorry about this,” she said, and without further explanation she leaned over the toilet and jammed her finger down her throat. Theron turned away, a hand going to his own mouth as the sudden and unmistakeable sounds of vomiting filled the small room.

Vector – who had never been one to be overly troubled by bodily functions of any sort – swiftly hurried to his wife’s side, one hand stroking her back while the other brushed her hair out of the way. Theron noticed that the two of them had dressed to complement each other: Miranza wore a slinky indigo dress with slits up both sides of the skirt and Vector’s black suit was trimmed with indigo accents. Even disheveled and out of sorts as they were, they were a striking couple.

Once Miranza was finished she spent some time rinsing her mouth and gulping down water from the sink before coming and sagging onto the cot beside Theron. She was so casual about it – as if there was nothing unusual about anything that had just occurred, as if they hadn't been apart six months – that Theron was hard-pressed not to go along with her, and when Vector sank down carefully on Miranza’s other side the three of them just sat together in silence. Theron noticed that Miranza’s cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes seemed slightly glazed, almost glassy. Without even thinking about it he put his hand on her arm, noting how cool her skin was to his touch.

“Are you … Are you all right?” he asked her. Over her head Theron saw that Vector was studying her closely, an expression of concern on his face.

Miranza looked at Vector, the angle preventing Theron from seeing her face. When she spoke there was a vague, dreamy quality to her voice. “There was spice in the cake. I didn’t know until he fed me some.”

_Spice? In the … Oh._ Of course an establishment like Club Vertica would offer intoxicant-enhanced food and drinks – it was Hutt-owned property, after all, and spice was only illegal in Republic and Imperial space. And thanks to an Alderaanian bastard who was now very, very dead (courtesy of Theron, in fact), Miranza was in recovery for an addiction to spice. Not only was she not the sort of person who was inclined to indulge on the job, so far as Theron knew she now avoided all drugs entirely, unwilling to risk a relapse. No wonder she’d made herself throw up.

“Is he dead?” Vector asked her quietly, stroking his hand over her back. Miranza shivered, but Theron didn’t think it was from cold, not judging by the way she was leaning into her husband’s touch.

“Yes.” Miranza nodded. “It should look like a heart attack.”

Theron sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. Admiral Staxon was dead, and whatever intel he had planned on bringing to the Republic was dead with him. And here Theron was, huddled on a cot in a janitor’s closet with the Imperial assassin responsible for killing him. The smart thing to do – the responsible, professional thing – would be to take Miranza and Vector into custody and bring them in for questioning. But Theron wasn’t going to do that, and it had nothing to do with the fact that they outnumbered him and he was still nursing a poisoning hangover.

“We would like to discuss this further,” said Vector, even as he pushed himself to his feet, “but we think you ought to rest first and sleep off the effects of the spice.” He turned to Theron. “If you would be so kind as to keep watch over our beloved, we will do a quick sweep of our surroundings – and see if there are any Chiss wandering around nearby.”

Theron nodded slowly, frowning. Under normal circumstances he would have tried to give Vector a better description of the man who had attacked him, but everything had happened so quickly that he hadn’t been able to get a good look at him. All he remembered was that the man was Chiss and tall – not the most helpful or detailed sketch. Miranza settled in against Theron as Vector headed for the door, and not for the first time Theron was forced to wonder how the kriff his life had taken such a strange turn, that this sort of thing just seemed normal to him. He should be using Vector's departure and Miranza's confusion to take Miranza into custody, and instead he was playing bodyguard while her husband patrolled for threats. He was a spaceship wreck. An actual, honest-to-goodness, one hundred percent verifiable disaster. Trant and the SIS should've thrown him out on his ass months ago, instead of letting him back into the field.

“I hate spice,” Miranza murmured unhappily, nestling into the curve of Theron’s arm. He hugged her in close, resting his chin on the top of her curly blonde head. Her hair was mussed up in a way that suggested she’d had it up in some elaborate hairstyle, but most of the locks appeared to have come free and it made him remember all the times he’d run his fingers through the curls.

He could relate to her sentiment; he wasn’t a big fan of spice himself, although he could understand the allure it held for others. The same things he found undesirable – the loss of control, the lowering of inhibitions – were what made it such a big draw to other people. As a spy he couldn’t afford to let himself lose control, and after the nightmare that had been his time with the Star Cabal, when he’d been brainwashed and at the whims of a sadist, he very much preferred to have complete control over himself and his faculties. And for Miranza – who had also, years ago, been a victim of the same Castellan restraints that had been used on him, and who was now trying to deal with the aftereffects of a forced addiction to spice – that loss of control must be a thousand times worse.

It was strange how natural it felt to be sitting there with Miranza, as if six months hadn’t passed with practically no contact between them, as if they weren’t on opposite sides of the political fence. There was a lot Theron wanted to talk to her about – she and Vector were the only ones who really, truly understood what he’d been through, all those months ago on Corellia and Alderaan, and all the things he couldn’t say to Doctor Zywes he knew he could say to the two of them. But now was not the time, and Miranza was in no shape for him to bare his soul to her.

“I missed you,” Miranza sighed, nuzzling his neck.

Theron turned his head, opening his mouth to reply – something safe, something responsible, _be an adult, for fuck's sake, Shan!_ – only for her to silence him when her mouth captured his.

If sitting quietly with Miranza felt natural, kissing her was practically second nature. Her mouth was soft and warm, and when Theron felt the tip of her tongue glide over his lips instinct – and familiarity – had him opening his own mouth slightly to grant her access. The mature, responsible part of him was cautioning against pursuing anything with her right now, reminding him that she was high on spice and they were both on the clock and this was _not_ how a professional was supposed to act, but the rest of him couldn’t help but notice that she was warm and his headache was gone and _kriff,_ it had been too damned long since they’d last been together.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, trying to push her away even as her mouth pressed against the pulse-point at his throat. “You’re high. You wouldn’t be doing this if –“

“I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t _you,”_ she replied, sliding easily into his lap, straddling him with her hips, and damn if that wasn't such a welcome thing for him to hear. Her bare arms twined around his neck, drawing him in for another kiss. Up close her eyes were almost all pupil, just a thin band of dark blue iris, and the realization that she looked slightly glassy-eyed made Theron’s reservations kick up another notch.

_It’s the spice,_ he told himself firmly, as Miranza kissed along the line of his jaw. Maybe she wouldn't be canoodling with just about anyone right now, maybe she really _was_ especially affectionate because it was _him_ and he was safe and they definitely had feelings for each other, but ... still. She was high. She wasn't in the right head-space for them to be doing ... anything ... together. Miranza wriggled in closer, hips grinding down in a way that made him suddenly painfully aware of how long it’d been since they’d last been intimate. She let out a happy sigh as a certain part of his anatomy announced its intentions to completely disregard any concerns Theron might have, and when she writhed against him a second time he couldn’t help the gasp of pleasure that escaped his lips.

“I’m going to the Void,” Theron muttered, before throwing caution to the wind and kissing her back.

Miranza’s fingers threaded through the dark hair at the back of his neck, her hands cupping his head to pull him in close. His hands – seemingly of their own volition – landed on her knees, sliding the rich indigo fabric of her dress upwards to expose her legs. He let himself focus on the touch of her under his fingers, how soft and silky-smooth her skin was, enjoying the murmured sigh of pleasure she made against his mouth. His fingers skimmed upwards, taking the hem of the dress with them, hitching her skirt up higher and higher until he could see the fair skin of her bared thighs. His hands curled around her hips, intending to yank her closer – until he ran the palm of his right hand over a rough swath of skin over her hipbone, partially hidden under the sides of her panties.

Frowning, momentarily distracted from what he had been doing, Theron brushed his fingers over the patch again, feeling Miranza stiffen against him. In contrast to her smooth skin, this patch felt rough and slightly raised, and he thought he could detect a faint pattern to it.

“Theron, _don’t_ –“

Theron pulled the skirt of her dress out of the way, cocking his head to get a better angle as he peered down at her exposed hip. Six months ago he could have described every inch of her body in perfect, intimate detail – and what he saw now hadn’t been there before. He was sure of it.

There, on the curve of Miranza’s hip, was a slave brand.

Flinching away as if he’d been burned, Theron met Miranza’s eyes, unable to stop the expression of horror he knew was sliding across his face. Her own expression a mixture of anger and humiliation, Miranza pushed herself off his lap, yanking her dress down to cover the brand as she backed away from him.

“Miranza …”

“I said don’t, Theron.” She continued to back away, arms folded across her chest defensively. The dreamy quality was gone from her voice and her eyes were clearing, rage and embarrassment burning through the lingering effects of the spice in her system. “I don’t want to talk about it, Theron.”

He stood, relieved to find himself steady on his feet, and moved towards her, intending to pull her into his arms again to offer her comfort. Instead, Miranza took another step backwards, biting her lip and looking away.

“Who fucking did this to you, Miranza?” Theron demanded, trying and failing to keep the anger out of his voice. The idea that someone – that _anyone_ – could have had the audacity to hurt her like this – to _mark_ her like this – was infuriating, and he was filled with righteous indignation on her behalf. She wasn’t something to be owned; she wasn’t a slave, a piece of property. He wanted to hunt down her abuser and murder them with his bare hands, slowly and painfully, and for that to be enough to heal the damage they’d left behind. And the fact that Miranza wasn't just angry about it, but that she was embarrassed, that Theron seeing the brand made her ashamed - it was enough to make him want to scream.

When she spoke again, Miranza’s voice was tired and jaded. “Choices have consequences, Theron. I knew that when I made them.”

She met his eyes, willing him to understand. He looked down, eyes resting on her hip, now hidden beneath indigo cloth.

_Choices have consequences, Theron._

_People make sacrifices for the ones they love._

Comprehension dawned, rage giving way to horror.

In the Sith Empire, failure was tantamount to treason, and Miranza and Vector had failed – not once, but twice – to deliver Theron to the Dark Council. Not because Theron had outsmarted them but rather because they were all of them too compromised to let one another fall into enemy hands. Miranza and Vector had made the choice, both times, to let Theron go free, and in both instances they had engineered circumstances to ensure that Theron’s escape appeared to be through happenstance rather than deliberate inaction or ( _admit it for what it was, Shan_ ) treason on their parts. To the Dark Council, however, those circumstances were largely irrelevant: Miranza and Vector, two Imperial citizens, had failed to complete their assignments.

Treason usually resulted in summary execution, but Miranza and Vector were too valuable to be wasted in such a fashion. Branding had probably seemed like a … merciful … compromise.

And, Theron realized, it had been done _because of him._

“Stars, Miranza, I’m so –“

He didn’t get the chance to finish. Just as the words were leaving his mouth the door came crashing open as the tall Chiss operative came barrelling into the tiny room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I finished with "TVoTaR" my intention was to write something lighter, fluffier - more action/adventure/romance than hurt/comfort/angst. As I started writing, however, I realized that Theron was still pretty messed up from what he went through a year ago and that his road to recovery had been on the rocky side, and so while there will be fluffy, happy moments in this story it's definitely going to be somewhat firmly on the "darker" side of things.
> 
> Even the one-shot Theron/Ryshan smut I started working on (that nobody asked for save for my dirty, dirty mind :D ) ended up being somewhat angsty and introspective, so it's entirely possible that I just can't do pure light fluff. *shrugs*


	3. Chapter 3

The Chiss burst in through the door and for a brief moment Theron had the sense that the other man was genuinely surprised to see him – surprised, and more than a little aggravated.

“How are you still alive?” the man snarled at Theron before charging forward, bull-rushing into Theron with his arms outstretched, catching the SIS agent around the waist and slamming him backwards into the sink. The metal lip of the sink caught Theron in the small of the back, the sudden pain knocking the breath from his lungs and staggering him long enough for the Chiss to follow the body-slam up with a solid punch to the face that left Theron seeing stars.

There was an abrupt flurry of movement behind the Chiss and then Miranza was launching herself onto the man’s back, her arms coiling around his neck as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Theron recovered himself in time to see her flex the muscles in her arms and legs, squeezing the man tightly enough to begin choking off his air supply. The Chiss’s face contorted with rage and he reared back, crushing Miranza between the shelves of cleaning supplies and his own body. He grabbed one of her arms, his nails digging into her skin hard enough that she cried out, and then he suddenly wrenched her free, his other hand going up to squeeze around her neck. Giving her a violent shake he slammed her into the shelves again before throwing her to the floor, viciously backhanding her and turning away in time to kick out at Theron, who had used this distraction to snatch up his vibroknife off the table.

“I’ll deal with you later, little sister,” the Chiss growled over his shoulder at Miranza, drawing a knife of his own from a sheath at his waist. He feinted towards Theron, the knife missing the SIS agent by a wide margin, then made another slashing motion that came close enough to slice a hole through Theron’s shirt.

Close-quarters fighting was not Theron’s forte; he far preferred to work from range, but in the small, cramped space of the janitor’s closet he didn’t have enough room to maneuver for his blaster to be of any use. He lashed out, swiped his vibroknife toward the man’s belly, and the Chiss was forced to lunge backwards, almost tripping over Miranza’s fallen form. The Chiss snarled again, kicking at her as he brought his knife up in a sweeping arc that would have laid Theron open if Miranza hadn’t reached out at the last minute and hooked her arm around the man’s leg.

The Chiss stumbled, unbalanced, and Theron took that opportunity to swing out with his free hand closed in a fist, landing a hard punch to the man’s jaw that rocked the Chiss’s head to one side. Then, before Theron could follow up with another punch the Chiss suddenly let out a hoarse cry, his knees buckling as both hands went flying down to clutch the small knife embedded in his leg. Miranza yanked the knife free, blood spurting out over the Chiss’s fingers, and stabbed him a second time in the back, jabbing the blade up and under his ribs before giving it a savage twist.

“Shit, no!” Theron cried, dropping beside the fallen man, both hands pressing to the wounds in a futile attempt to staunch the blood flow. “We can’t question him if he’s … Miranza?”

Miranza huddled on the other side of the dying Chiss, her own hands – slick with blood – pressed to her mouth as she stared, wide-eyed and gasping, at the mess before her. Her lips were moving, but Theron couldn’t make out what she was saying over the man’s stuttering breaths, and he had the sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t seeing the room around her at all.

It was no use. Theron’s hands fell free of the body and he slumped back onto the floor, his own breath coming in ragged pants. There was nothing he could do to save the Chiss: Miranza’s first cut had hit an artery and would have been fatal even if she hadn’t immediately followed it up by shoving her knife in the man’s back. What the hell had prompted her to kill him, though, when between the two of them they should have been able to take him down? Theron’s eyes flicked to Miranza’s face, and he felt a pang of confusion at how terrified she looked.

 _Flashback?_ he wondered, watching her closely. She’d been through some horrifying shit a year ago on Alderaan – never mind what he had gone through with her before that, on Corellia – and he knew a violent attack like this could certainly trigger unpleasant memories of her past experiences. Theron would have expected that Miranza, like him, would have been forced into therapy before being permitted back into active duty, but it occurred to him that he really had no idea _how_ the Empire handled these sorts of things.

It also occurred to him that if her bosses in the Empire were willing to have her branded like a slave, they probably didn’t give two fucks about her mental health.

“What did he call me, Theron?” she whispered, and he realized that that was what she had been saying before, when he couldn’t hear her – _What did he call me?_ – over and over again.

 _Little sister,_ Theron thought, although he didn’t speak it. Was that some bizarre Chiss expression? Or did it have a deeper meaning? Miranza was, so far as Theron knew, an orphan, with no knowledge of her parents or siblings – and in any event, the Chiss couldn’t _possibly_ be related to her, at least not in the biological sense. But even if the words didn’t mean anything to Theron, judging by the fear on Miranza’s face they held meaning to _her._

He leaned across the body, intending to help Miranza to her feet, only to be startled by a sudden knock at the door. The knock made both him and Miranza jump – in the confusion, he hadn’t even noticed that the door had swung shut again – and she turned, her blue eyes focused intently on the door, the sound seeming to snap her out of the fugue state she had been in.

 _“Better answer that,”_ a dry voice intoned in Theron’s ear, making him jump a second time.

Cursing under his breath, Theron scrambled to his feet and stepped over the dead Chiss, heading to the door. He hesitated, making sure Miranza was safely behind him, then pulled the door open a crack to peer outside.

Vector stood out in the hall, his expression carefully blank. Behind him was Captain Jorgan, standing in close enough that his body shielded from view the blaster pistol he had pressed against Vector’s side. Jorgan took in the dead body on the floor and the two bloodied agents now standing over him, then cocked his head and used the muzzle of his sidearm to nudge Vector forward. The look the Cathar gave Theron was difficult to read, but to Theron it fell somewhere between _What the actual fucking fuck?_ and _You better have a good fucking explanation for this, Shan._ Whatever Jorgan was thinking, Theron was confident there was a lot of very bad language involved.

Before Theron could offer up any sort of explanation Miranza spoke up behind him, her voice as cold as Hoth.

“Step away from my husband before I kill you where you stand.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Jorgan said – and to his credit, he did actually sound respectful – “I’m the one holding the pistol.”

“If you hurt him it won’t matter what you’re holding.” There was no boasting in her voice, just calm, hard fact. Theron felt a chill ripple through him at the sound, and at his own conviction that she was telling the truth.

Theron held up his hands, hoping the bloodstains didn’t diminish his honesty, and moved until he was standing between Miranza and the other two, keeping his body turned so that he didn’t have his back to anyone.

“Jorgan, put the blaster down,” he said, trying to force as much calm and patience into his voice as he could. He turned his head slightly so that he could look at Miranza. “Miranza, stop making threats. Come on, we’re all friends here.”

“We’re really not,” Jorgan argued, although he looked like he was willing to be convinced. His gaze was fixed on Miranza, though his next comment was directed at Theron. “I know exactly who she is, Shan, and she is _not_ on our side. Neither is her … husband.”

“Respectfully, Captain,” said Vector, sounding strained but still managing to seem remarkably calm and unaffected in spite of the present circumstances, “we _are_ occasionally on the same side, although at present we are much more interested in the dead man on the floor, and in why our wife and Agent Shan should be covered in blood.” He pursed his lips before asking in an almost plaintive tone, “Beloved, are you well?”

Miranza opened her mouth to speak – and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted dead away.

O o O o O

Jorgan made some sound of protest, but Theron barely paid him any attention, too focused on catching Miranza before she could hit the ground. Vector, too, was pushing forward, ignoring the weapon trained on him in favour of hurrying to his wife’s side. After a moment’s hesitation Jorgan let out a disgruntled huff, jammed his sidearm in its holster and moved into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.

Theron had managed to grab hold of Miranza, and he carried her the short distance over to the cot, Vector close on his heels. As soon as Miranza was lying down the Joiner was searching her for injuries, his hands running swiftly over her still form but finding nothing more than minor contusions and abrasions from her fight with the Chiss. She was already stirring, coming to with a small gasp.

“Miranza?” Vector murmured, brushing her cheek with his fingertips, “Are you all right?”

She struggled to sit up, a rueful smile tugging at her lips as she looked up at Jorgan. “Well, I guess _that_ destroyed any hope I had of intimidating you, Captain.”

To Theron’s surprise Jorgan let out a harsh bark of laughter, folding his arms across his chest and scowling back down at her. “Anyone who can sound convincing while on the verge of passing out deserves my respect, ma’am.” He glanced over at Vector and Theron, who were both watching him warily, and shrugged slightly. “Looks like you defused the situation anyway. Turns out I feel like an asshole holding a gun on a man who thinks his wife’s dying.”

“No doubt your dastardly plan all along, beloved,” Vector said quietly, giving Miranza a light kiss.

Jorgan stepped back over the body, moving towards the door. He gave Theron a long, measuring look, then shook his head.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said gruffly, “but there’s a dead Chiss on the floor and the two of you are hurt. There’s also a whole lot of people running around the halls outside – something about a _dead body_ found in one of the hotel suites? Ring any bells? My best guess is, our op’s blown to the Void and all four of us need to get the kriff out of here before somebody needs to use this closet for actual janitorial shit. So, Shan, I’m gonna give you ten minutes to straighten your shit out with our Imperial _friends_ here, and then you and me are gonna book it back to home base. You copy?”

Theron exchanged looks with Miranza and Vector before clearing his throat. “Yeah. Ten minutes. Thanks, Jorgan.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jorgan replied. He gave Theron a pointed look. “ _Please._ I don’t want to get hauled in for another Senate inquiry over this.”

The Cathar sighed heavily, pausing at the door, and added without turning around again, “And for the love of the Aether, _turn your fucking comm off, Shan.”_

O o O o O

Half an hour later Theron was back in the safe house he was sharing with Jorgan, bare-chested and hunched over on a hard wooden chair while the sniper took a look at his back. In addition to the still-healing marks he had from the poisoned darts the Chiss had used on him, Theron now had a line of bruising across the small of his back from where he had connected with the metal rim of the sink, as well as a jagged slash to his hip that he didn’t remember receiving and which had left bloodstains all down his left leg. Their first aid supplies were limited, but Jorgan knew his way around a medkit and was serving as Theron’s field medic. He was focused on stitching up the cut on Theron’s hip, steadfastly ignoring the muffled swearing coming from his patient.

“So,” Jorgan said after some deliberation, “that was her, wasn’t it?” The two of them had been silent for a long time - Theron's pained cursing notwithstanding - but it seemed like the Cathar had been using that time to think.

Theron stilled, wishing he could twist around to look up at the other man. Jorgan’s hands were unsurprisingly steady – the man _was_ a sniper, after all – and he worked with quiet efficiency, threading the suture through Theron’s skin and pausing every so often to reapply the numbing ointment. Theron could still feel it, but it was a strange sensation, something that wasn’t quite painful but definitely wasn’t what he’d call pleasant. He was aware of the needle and surgical thread going into his skin, but it didn't really hurt - aside from the pain of the wound itself, and the strain of holding himself still while Jorgan worked.

“Her?” Theron repeated cautiously.

“Aeth mentioned her.” Major Aethan Tigano was Jorgan’s CO, the commander of Havoc Squad. “After Alderaan. Said she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.”

“I doubt she was looking all that hot when he saw her,” Theron replied. Major Tigano had been there when Miranza had escaped from her captors, thugs who had spent several days torturing her. He and his wife Lieutenant Dorne had saved Miranza’s life, only to take her into custody when they discovered she was an Imperial agent. Theron, technically in Imperial custody himself (even if the only Imperials involved were Vector and an army of Empire-aligned Killiks), arranged to have himself exchanged for her, a prisoner of war transfer organized by his father. He’d barely had time to see Miranza – she’d been heavily bandaged and bundled up against the cold, and it would have looked odd if he had lingered over her appearance – but what he’d seen of her at the time hadn’t been pleasant. “And isn’t Major Tigano married?”

“He is,” Jorgan confirmed. “He’s also not one for hyperbole, so if Aeth says she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen then she must be really something. That woman? Back there in the janitor’s closet? That was her. Aeth neglected to mention that you were fucking her.”

Theron winced at the bluntness in the other man’s voice, burying his face in his hands. “He didn’t know.”

“Yeah.” Jorgan’s voice was a quiet huff, and he sighed. “I figured. Look, Shan … I get it. She’s gorgeous. Men have done stupid shit for far worse reasons, but if you let her execute our target, then we’ve got a problem here. I’m not … I can’t just ignore this, you get it? She’s an Imp. Admiral Staxon was defecting to our side and she murdered him for it. By all rights I should be hunting her down – her _and_ her bug husband – and dragging them back to Coruscant in chains.”

“So why aren’t you?”

Jorgan sighed again. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

The Cathar tied off the sutures and snipped the thread, using a sterile wipe to clean up the blood. He disappeared into the ‘fresher for a few seconds to wash the blood off his hands, then returned and took up his position again, unscrewing the cap from a fresh tube of kolto gel.

“Hold still,” he said gruffly, and began to apply the kolto to Theron’s skin. He started with the area around the freshly-stitched wound, generously slathering the kolto over the cut and the surrounding flesh. Their first aid supplies might be limited, but there was a decent amount of kolto.

Jorgan worked in silence for a few minutes, hands gentle but firm as they smoothed the kolto over the worst of Theron’s bruises. Theron’s back was aching and his headache had returned full-force, but Jorgan’s ministrations were soothing and now that the adrenaline had worn off he was starting to feel exhaustion pulling him down. He knew, however, that if he tried to sleep his mind would keep him up; he had too many things to think about, and the vast majority of those things were troublesome.

The ten minutes Theron had spent with Miranza and Vector before hurrying back to the safe house had been unsatisfying, to say the least. There were dozens of things he wanted to say to the two Imperials, and none of those things were appropriate to a temporary truce and a rushed conversation in a janitor’s closet. They’d been forced to focus on what was mission critical – the dead Chiss, the equally dead Admiral – when all Theron had wanted to ask about was Miranza’s scar, how the two of them had been since last they’d seen each other, and whether or not their dreams were as haunted by him as his were of them.

“Look, Shan.” Jorgan’s voice startled him out of his reverie. The sniper's hands had stilled, hovering over a particularly tender spot above Theron’s kidneys – Theron was fairly certain he’d have a perfect imprint of the lip of the sink painted on his skin once the bruises fully developed – and his voice was hesitant. “I’ve read your service record – the stuff that’s not redacted, anyway. You don’t strike me as the type of guy who abandons his ideals and his patriotism on a whim, and that makes me think that whatever you’re doing with these two Imperials – whatever you’ve _done_ – you’ve got your reasons. But I need to know, for my own conscience’s sake, that you’re not putting the Republic at risk by letting them go.”

Theron considered his words carefully. He didn’t think he’d heard the Cathar speak this much in the entire time they’d been working together, and he could tell from the heat in Jorgan’s voice that this was incredibly important to the other man. Theron had read Jorgan’s service record, too, and to say it was impressive was barely scratching the surface. The man was a shining example of what a Republic soldier should be. He'd been nothing but a steadfast partner since Theron had started this op, and he deserved to receive a decent answer to his question.

“I honestly don’t know,” Theron admitted finally. “They’re … I … It’s complicated.”

Jorgan snorted and went back to work. “When is it ever not?”

“Yeah.” Theron grimaced slightly as the sniper pressed down on another tender spot, sucking in his breath on a sharp hiss of pain. “ _Ouch._ Look, you’ve read my file, so I assume you know what happened to me a year ago?”

“I’ve got a rough idea,” Jorgan said, after a muttered apology. “Like I said, parts were redacted. A _lot_ of parts.”

It was Theron’s turn to snort. Jorgan was pretty high up there in the Republic military and no doubt whoever assigned him to work with Theron had wanted him to have a decent idea of the man he was being partnered up with, but the Republic military and the SIS had never been known to play well with each other. Chances were good there were an awful lot of things in Theron’s past that his superiors – namely Director Trant – had wanted to keep off the Cathar’s radar.

“Yeah, well, I’ve had an interesting run,” Theron said, and Jorgan chuckled at that, a low, deep rumble that was vaguely reminiscent of a purr. “But anyway … About a year ago I was kidnapped. Most of the details are probably classified” Jorgan grunted in confirmation “but the main thing you need to know is, it was bad.”

‘Bad’ didn’t even begin to cover what Theron had been through, but if Jorgan didn’t know the details – and Theron was reasonably confident he didn’t, given that the SIS probably weren’t keen on giving out the fact that one of their top operatives had been kidnapped, tortured and brainwashed by a clandestine organization that wanted to overthrow both the Republic and the Empire and start a new world order free from the machinations of the Force-sensitive – then Theron wasn’t particularly eager to share them, either. Jorgan was a smart man, however, and Theron had to assume that he’d make some connections on his own without Theron painting him a full picture.

“Miranza and Vector were the ones who rescued me,” he continued. The Cathar let out a small huff of surprise, but didn’t interrupt. “We knew each other from that whole Revanite affair on Yavin, and, well, I guess when I disappeared they were convinced to help look for me.” There was more to it than just that, of course, but Jorgan didn’t need to know the rest. "They put their own lives on the line to save mine, and … I owe them.”

Jorgan fell silent again, mulling it over. Finally, almost grudgingly, he asked, “And the part where you’re sleeping with the enemy?”

Theron sighed. “Yeah, that’s the part where it gets complicated.”

He wanted to say that Miranza and Vector weren’t the enemies, but it wasn’t that simple. They _were,_ at least in the sense that mattered here – they were loyal Imperials, and if Miranza’s slave brand was any indication they were probably especially motivated to serve the Empire now (albeit likely in more of a 'serve or die' sense than with the patriotism that had motivated them before). Theron had been quick to leap to the conclusion that Vector had set him up to be ambushed – and yet Vector had been just as quick to entrust Theron with protecting Miranza while he went in search of the Chiss. Miranza _had_ killed Admiral Staxon, which was the very thing Theron was supposed to have prevented, and he wasn’t sure he would have been able to stop her even if he had gotten to her before she located the target. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if he had found Staxon first, or if he and Miranza had run into each other before the assassination had occurred. Would they have fought? Would they have tried to kill each other? _Could_ they even try to kill each other? ‘Complicated’ was putting things mildly.

Still: it wasn’t a complete wash.

“I didn’t completely botch the assignment,” Theron said after a moment, shifting awkwardly so that he could reach into his back pocket. He pulled out a dataspike, holding it up so Jorgan could see it. “I mean, yeah, Staxon’s dead, but I managed to get some intel.”

Jorgan looked at the dataspike, raising a tawny red eyebrow. “And your source?”

“Miranza,” Theron admitted. She’d given him the dataspike as they parted ways. “Vector warned me that Staxon wasn’t exactly an innocent do-gooder – not that that came as any great surprise – and this is the intel they had on him.”

“And they just gave that to you?” The sarcasm in Jorgan’s voice was unmistakable, and certainly forgivable under the circumstances.

“Yes.” Theron didn’t know how to explain to the Cathar that while he understood that the two Imperials couldn’t be considered the most reliable of sources, _he_ trusted them. The intel would be good, even if it wasn’t the same as having a living, breathing defector to return to the Republic. “We didn’t know what kinds of projects Staxon was involved in or what he intended to bring to the Republic. Miranza’s not going to share top-secret classified information with me, but I think the stuff on this spike will give us a lead on specific areas of interest. We can work with this.”

“I guess that’s something.” Jorgan screwed the cap back onto the tube of gel and patted Theron on the shoulder, indicating he could get up. Theron stood, slowly, the muscles in his legs and back protesting the movement after being hunched over and sitting for so long. Part of him wanted to check his back out in the ‘fresher mirror so that he could see the damage for himself, but most of him just wanted to curl up in bed and pretend the day hadn’t happened at all.

Jorgan put the remaining medical supplies away in the kit and tucked it in with the rest of their gear, then spent a few minutes disposing of the used wipes and bloodied bandages. He gave his hands another good scrubbing before digging into the pocket of his pants and producing a dataspike of his own, which he held out to Theron.

“What’s this?” Theron accepted the dataspike gingerly, as if it might bite.

“You weren’t the only one gathering intel,” Jorgan replied, shrugging. “I was trying to find you. Sounded like you were in some kind of fight, could use the help. I took the wrong hallway, tried to hail you on your comm but you’d gone silent, and then when I doubled back the way I came I found the admiral’s suite. He was already dead.” Some conflicting emotions flickered across his face – uncertainty, combined with something like embarrassment or concern, it was hard to read. “Look, uh … I don’t know how you spooks usually operate, but it was pretty clear the admiral died in the middle of … well, he died happy, let’s just leave it at that.”

 _Ah._ Miranza had said Admiral Staxon’s death should look like a heart attack, she’d just left out the finer details, but Theron had already assumed she’d used seduction to lure the man away somewhere private. Staxon hadn’t been a young man and he hadn’t exactly been in prime health; a heart attack mid-coitus would absolutely be believable. It amused him that Jorgan appeared to be trying to spare him the full gory details – as if Theron didn’t know that Miranza used her sexuality as a weapon just as readily as she used a sniper rifle or a vibroknife. Seduction was a viable tool in a spy’s arsenal, and while Theron generally preferred to avoid it – or at least, he chose to avoid committing to the seduction – he knew Miranza didn’t share his preferences. It didn't really change his opinion of her, although he could see that it bothered Jorgan. He wondered if Jorgan's discomfort had anything to do with the fact that Cathar typically mated for life; maybe the sniper wasn't a big fan of casual sex. Or maybe he thought Miranza's decision to sleep with her mark meant she was cheating on Vector - or on Theron.

Theron wondered if it ought to trouble him that Miranza had had sex with the admiral – or if he should be more bothered by the fact that he wasn’t bothered at all.

“Anyway …” Jorgan cleared his throat awkwardly. “Staxon was dead, so I searched the room. Figured, like you said, might as well ensure the op wasn’t a complete failure. Found this” he indicated the dataspike “in some of his personal effects. Don’t know if there’s anything useful on it, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Good thinking,” Theron said. “I can decrypt both the dataspikes, see what we managed to dig up.”

“Yeah, well.” Jorgan shrugged, looking a bit smug. “Unlike you, I wasn’t thinking with my dick.”

“That’s … uh …” Theron rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, face reddening. “Yeah, that’s a fair assessment.”

O o O o O

“We should put some kolto on this before you sleep.”

Vector’s hands were light against Miranza’s back, trailing water and bubbles over the bruises left from her encounter with the Chiss. He sat behind her in the tub, his long legs bent to fit in the tight space, fragrant bubbles clinging to his skin. The bath had been his idea; the bubbles had been hers.

One of the benefits of using a wealthy cover identity was having access to fancy hotel suites with luxurious accommodations. Club Vertica Casino catered to the rich and powerful, and it had made sense to choose one of their flashier covers for their stay there. At least, that’s what Miranza planned to tell Sith Intelligence when writing up her report; no need to add that the luxury suite and an excuse to get her handsome husband in a fancy suit were also part of her motivation. If they had to work for Intelligence again she intended to milk it for all it was worth.

Granted, they didn’t _need_ to be on the job for her to convince Vector to play dress-up, but she’d happily take every opportunity life handed her.

The bath had definitely been a good idea, and not just because the tub was large enough for her and Vector to recline in it together. Miranza had wanted to wash off the blood and sweat, but more than that she had wanted to wash the admiral’s scent off her, the feel of his hands on her skin.

For a man running for his life, Admiral Staxon had been ridiculously easy to lure into bed. The promise of sex shouldn’t be a strong enough reason to abandon all common sense, and yet it was a lure Miranza had used time and time again. Seduction was an easy tactic, and following through ensured compliance and, generally, access to privacy. It wasn’t the first time Miranza had slept with a mark, although it had been a while – about a year, in fact. It was, however, the first time she’d come away from the experience feeling dirty and ashamed, and she knew her feelings on the matter had nothing to do with the way Staxon had treated her. He’d been respectful and solicitous the whole time, right up until the moment she’d jabbed the syringe into his neck and pressed the plunger.

No, Staxon had nothing to do with how she was feeling, and Miranza didn’t particularly want to think about the real reasons.

“Are you all right, beloved?” Vector asked, not for the first time since they’d been back in their suite. He scooped some water up in his cupped hand and dribbled it over her thigh before running his hand up and down her leg. The motion was soothing rather than sexual, the way one might calm a skittish beast. When she didn’t answer right away he sighed and cleared his throat, switching tack. “Theron said that it seemed the Chiss knew you. He was concerned that it upset you, particularly when the man called you ‘little sister.’ We can see that your aura remains troubled even now.”

Miranza was grateful that sitting with her back to her husband meant that he couldn’t see her face – even if her aura gave her away. She _was_ troubled, but up until Vector reminded her of the Chiss it hadn’t been about that.

Not that she particularly wanted to discuss the dead Chiss, either.

“Did you know him?” Vector asked her gently, still running his hands up and down her legs. The water was beginning to cool – they’d been in the tub for a long time – but his touch was pleasant and comforting as always. She was tempted to try distracting her husband through sex, knowing that while he wasn’t particularly easy to manipulate (he knew her too well to fall for her tricks) he would be receptive to some post-bath lovemaking. But as much as she wanted Vector’s touch to ease away her memories of the admiral’s hands on her, she didn’t want to use her husband in such a fashion, and she knew that distracting him now was only delaying the inevitable.

“No,” she said, after the silence had stretched out to an almost uncomfortable length. “But … what he said, what he called me … That was familiar.”

“Oh?” That one word – no judgment, no pressure, just a soft intonation, an expression of curiosity and interest, nothing more. Vector’s calm acceptance, his assurance that she would tell him in her own time, was what propelled her to speak.

“Back at the facility where I was raised,” she began, and paused, biting her lip. She didn’t talk about her childhood often. It wasn’t unusual for spies to come from unhappy backgrounds – well-adjusted individuals did not generally choose to become liars and thieves and killers for a living, no matter how patriotic they might be – but Miranza’s was especially complicated. Orphans made good agents. Orphans raised in top-secret facilities run by Imperial Intelligence, trained practically from infancy to be the perfect weapon: even better. “We were encouraged to think of each other as brothers and sisters. It was supposed to foster a sense of cohesiveness, I think – to consider ourselves family, rather than strangers or colleagues.”

“We cannot imagine that was particularly effective,” Vector replied quietly. His hands slid up her arms before resting lightly on her shoulders, at the base of her neck. He waited a moment for her to relax into his touch, then began to work the tension out of her shoulders and back, deft fingers digging in to press down on just the right spots.

“Not really, no.” ‘Family’ or no, the facility had not gone out of their way to inspire strong bonds between the trainees. Competition was fierce – and deadly. There was no room for sentimentality. Miranza might have been expected to think of her fellow trainees as her siblings, but she rather doubted most sisters were required to slit their brother’s throats at the first sign of weakness or betrayal. Not that _she_ was any expert on typical familial interactions. “But it was fairly common to call one another ‘Brother’ or ‘Sister,’ especially when we recognized another child from the facility but didn’t know their name.”

Vector’s thumbs dug into the tense muscles of her back, eliciting a groan from his wife as he worked at a particularly tight knot. He was careful to avoid pressing down on any of the bruises, although there were a few spots that were tender without being bruised. He was right: she would need to put kolto on her bruises before they went to bed, or she wouldn't be able to walk come the next morning.

“And this Chiss, then,” he continued thoughtfully, “he was from the facility?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember him, but that doesn’t mean anything.” He had called her ‘little sister,’ which suggested the Chiss had been her elder – but Chiss aged at a different rate from humans, and Miranza was a lousy judge of age in any case. He could have been in the facility before her time – or he could have been there while she was there, and she simply didn’t remember. She didn’t feel like telling Vector that a lot of her memories of her time at the facility were vague. She knew it wasn’t normal for entire segments of your life to simply be missing, even if it was normal for _her._ Some things were difficult to explain, even to someone you trusted implicitly.

“Well,” Vector said finally, his hands dropping to her sides, “he’s dead now, so we cannot ask him.” She winced, feeling guilty for having killed the man even though she knew Vector didn’t judge her for it. He leaned forward, apparently oblivious to her train of thought, and kissed her at the base of her neck, his lips warm against her skin. “We should get out now and get ready for bed.”

Even as she complied, Miranza was certain sleep would be a long time in coming for her. As she and Vector went through the rest of their nightly routine – him helping her to comb the tangles from her hair, the two of them brushing their teeth over the sink, him applying kolto to her back, donning their travel sleepwear and then reviewing their datapads for any last-minute messages – she considered everything that had happened that day and how unsettled it all made her feel.

Climbing into bed beside her husband, Miranza turned to Vector, wriggling in close. If he was surprised by her desire for cuddles he gave no indication, but simply wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight.

“Your aura is troubled, beloved,” he murmured, nuzzling her cheek.

She didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m not in the right head-space tonight. Could you just hold me until I fall asleep?”

He planted a kiss on her forehead, his lips lingering against her skin. “Of course, beloved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A part of me is a little concerned folks will think I've gone a bit OOC with Jorgan here, but as by-the-books as he is I think that he would have looked at Theron's (rather remarkable - two Dark Council members dead at his hand, two Imperial superweapons destroyed, a top-secret codex stolen, not to mention the whole Revan thing) service record and chosen to believe that Theron is deserving of some discretion. Given that Jorgan himself was willing to go off-books in order to rescue the Deadeyes, he's not an entirely rigid and unforgiving character.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for slightly dub-con, as well as referenced (past) rape. This chapter starts out light (for me) and then gets pretty freaking dark.

Director Marcus Trant’s office on Coruscant was large and open, with a window overlooking the Senate gardens and more floor space than Theron’s entire apartment. (Not that this was difficult. Most standard-sized ‘freshers felt larger than Theron’s apartment.)

Theron’s usual approach to visiting Trant in his office was to walk in like he owned the place, and so when he went in for his post-op debriefing that was precisely what he did: sauntered in past the Director’s receptionist – who was well-accustomed to Theron’s shenanigans by this point – helped himself to the plate of pastries sitting out on the table in the centre of the room, and then slouched down in the chair across from Trant’s desk waiting to be acknowledged. Trant was in the middle of reviewing some reports and chose to steadfastly ignore the agent in front of him; he, too, was used to Theron’s shenanigans.

Theron had already submitted his report on the Staxon op, along with Jorgan’s debriefing. He had been pleasantly surprised to discover that Jorgan’s version of events was more or less in line with his own in spite of the whole situation with Miranza and Vector. The Cathar had simply reported that Theron had met with ‘a confidential informant’ who provided intel on Staxon’s whereabouts, but when Theron arrived on the scene the would-be defector was already dead. Jorgan _did_ mention the two Imperial agents, but left out names and identities, and described the situation as more of a détente, in that the Imps in question were responsible for the admiral’s death, but that an attack from an operative of unknown origin necessitated a ceasefire. Jorgan didn’t give any indication that Theron had known the Imperials – or that one of them was in fact Theron’s CI. Jorgan’s report was neat, light on details, and _technically_ accurate.

Untroubled by Trant’s apparent disinterest in him, Theron hooked one leg over the arm of his chair and munched on his puff pastry, waiting to be acknowledged. Trant would get to him when he was good and ready; Theron might as well enjoy his snack while he waited.

He was just starting to – noisily – lick the syrup off his fingers when Trant finally deigned to notice him. The Director levelled a glare at Theron from across the desk, his dark brows coming together in a scowl.

“So,” he said, without preamble, “Staxon’s dead. Got anything to show for it?”

Theron was unfazed. Trant liked him – sort of, in a grudging “if you were my kid I’d kick your ass from here to Naboo” kind of way – and was generally willing to stick his neck out for him. The Director had been the one who’d ensured Theron ended up as a ‘rogue, disavowed agent’ following the events on Manaan, rather than landing him in prison or getting him put before a firing squad. He was still Theron’s boss, however, and taking Theron to task for his fuck-ups came with the territory.

“Retrieved some intel,” Theron said, getting up and helping himself to another pastry. _Ooh, chocolate._ He took a few bites, then spoke around a mouthful of food, “Jorgan located a dataspike on the scene and my CI provided me with another one shortly before we split up.” There – that was suitably vague and, once again, technically correct. Vector had provided him with the dataspike – or rather, Miranza had, but the two had been working together on that – shortly before they’d gone their separate ways. Trant didn’t need to know that this had all happened _after_ Staxon was killed.

He’d included details on the dataspikes in his report, of course, so Trant already knew all of this. The dataspike from Miranza and Vector had been encrypted, but not heavily so – just enough that it wouldn’t seem suspicious. He’d cracked it easily and included the intel in his report. For the most part the information served to support Vector’s comment that Admiral Staxon hadn’t been a good or innocent man, and while Theron knew it could have been fabricated for that exact purpose he also knew that in all likelihood such fabrication hadn’t been necessary. Willingness to defect or not, it was as Vector had said: one doesn’t tend to make it to the position of admiral within the Imperial military without being willing to commit the occasional atrocity. Chances were good the man hadn’t been trying to defect because he’d had a change of heart, but rather because he’d gone and pissed off someone more powerful than himself, and he’d hoped the Republic could protect him.

So much for that idea.

The other dataspike – the one Jorgan had located in Staxon’s room – was proving harder to crack. Theron was a skilled slicer and even he hadn’t been able to unlock the encryption. Fortunately he had some contacts who might be able to help, and so he’d handed the dataspike over to one of them, a weedy little slicer by the name of Joxer who ran with anarchists and liked to be paid in secrets. He was just waiting to hear from Joxer now; Theron would have included the intel in his report, but Trant had grown tired of waiting and he wasn’t able to crack the dataspike fast enough on his own.

Trant looked down at a datapad on his desk, using one finger to flick through the various reports until he landed on the one Theron had submitted. He read quietly, eyes scanning the viewscreen, then nodded and sat back.

“Looks like the Republic is better off without the Admiral,” he said finally, folding his arms across his chest. “He was mixed up in all sorts of bad things before his death: slavery, genetic experimentation, superweapon engineering …”

“Yeah, the usual Sith Empire trifecta of awfulness,” Theron agreed. The files Miranza had provided had been fairly comprehensive if somewhat light on the details – they knew what Staxon had been involved in (and almost all of it was the sort of thing that would have given Theron nightmares ten years ago) but not where, when or with whom. As Theron had hoped, however, it gave them an idea of where else to look if they wanted to get more information. “Also eugenics, experimental mind control” – and if that didn’t make Theron’s heart speed up in his chest nothing would – “and … archaeology, of all things.”

“Any idea what was on the other dataspike?” Trant asked.

Theron finished the last bite of his chocolate puff and shrugged. “Nothing concrete, but I’m willing to bet he was hoping to exchange that information for his freedom. Jorgan found the dataspike hidden in his suite, so chances are good he was intending to bring it with him to the meet and greet. I’ve got a guy working on it now.”

“All right.” The Director switched the datapad off and fixed Theron with an assessing look. “Anything you want to add, Agent Shan?”

Theron wiped his hands off on his pants and stood. “Nope. Not a thing, sir.”

Trant sighed and waved him off. “Fine. Dismissed. Now stop eating all my food and get out of here before I start asking the hard questions.”

Giving the Director a sketchy salute Theron sauntered out of the office, doing his best to avoid seeming as though he was in a hurry to be gone. Truth be told, however, he really didn’t want Trant to ask those hard questions, because Theron was fairly confident his boss wouldn’t like the answers.

O o O o O

Of all the things Theron had heard during the course of his therapy with Doctor Zywes, his least favourite had to be the line “Can we unpack this?” She was never talking about luggage or groceries; when she asked if they could _unpack_ something, she meant that she wanted to probe deeper into something Theron had said, and that almost always meant she was going to be poking at something he’d rather not consider too closely. Since he was in therapy for a number of extremely good reasons, there were an awful lot of things he’d rather not have poked at.

“Can we unpack this?” was, unfortunately, one of Doctor Zywes’s favourite sayings, and in her sessions with him – down to once a month, now, rather than the three times a week he’d originally been required to attend – she asked it a _lot._

Doctor Zywes was a perfectly lovely Togruta roughly the same age as Theron’s own mother, and she had the same general serenity that Theron associated with Satele Shan. That was where the similarities between the two ended, however. The doctor was far warmer and more open than Theron’s mother had ever been with him, and frankly Theron had a much better relationship with her, as well.

Doctor Zywes wanted to ‘unpack’ Theron’s relationship with Satele, of course. As much as he hated talking about Satele – about his Grand Master of the Jedi Order mother who had chosen to abandon him as an infant and who only interfered in his personal life now to let him know how much she disapproved of some (read: most) of the choices he had made – she was a convenient distraction from the dozen or so _other_ things he’d rather not be discussing. So whenever Doctor Zywes asked him about something he didn’t want to talk about – Corellia, Samar, the things he’d been made to do while suffering under the effects of the Castellan restraints – he trotted out another story from his messed-up childhood and let her unpack _that_ shit.

All things considered, Theron was an awful patient, but in fairness to himself he didn’t think there were many spies who could be thought of as ‘good.’ Professions given towards lying and manipulation (not to mention paranoia, secrecy and a healthy mistrust of pretty much everyone and everything) did not lend themselves well to the honesty required of therapy.

Lately Doctor Zywes had been having Theron kept a dream diary, journaling the dreams and (mostly) nightmares he had throughout the week. Theron’s dreams were ninety percent sex and violence, with another ten percent talking animals and finding himself naked in the middle of an important meeting, and half the time he forgot to write anything down anyway, but he’d yet to be able to persuade her that this wasn’t getting him anywhere. He’d started the assignment in good faith, doing his best to keep track of what he dreamed about and how it made him feel (because Force knew he was going to have to unpack that), but he’d eventually realized that he didn’t really feel like recounting any of his dreams to his therapist, no matter what her good intentions were. He already had a hard time discussing the bullshit he’d gone through with Samar and the Star Cabal, he didn’t want to also have to tell her about that time he dreamed Samar was hacking his chest open with a metal spoon and forcing him to watch as the other man eat the bits and pieces he carved away. He didn’t need his therapist to tell him that that was fucked up.

And since almost one hundred percent of his pleasant dreams involved Miranza and Vector (or Miranza or Vector), Theron most definitely did _not_ want to discuss those, either. He hadn’t gone into details about his relationship with the two Imperials other than to say that they had rescued him, and he really didn’t feel like expanding his original story. His sessions with Doctor Zywes were supposed to be confidential but he was pretty sure that if he told her he was sleeping with a pair of Imperial spies she’d be having a closed-door meeting with Director Trant before he was done talking.

Doctor Zywes really deserved a better class of patient.

“What makes you think that, Theron?” the Togruta said, and he started back to himself, annoyed to realize he’d spoken the thought out loud. He’d been dozing off a little bit – he hadn’t slept well in ages and the past few nights since he’d been back on Coruscant had been no different – and had kind of lost track of himself.

“I … just … I think you’re a good therapist,” Theron said, staring intently at the fish tank that took up most of one wall of her office as he searched for something to say that wasn’t either completely bullshit or entirely too honest. He winced internally, sensing that ‘I think you’re a good therapist’ was probably the psychiatric equivalent of ‘I think you’re a nice guy, but …’ “And I think you’re probably wasted working with spies. It’s not like we can be completely honest with you.”

Doctor Zywes smiled at him over her datapad; she took notes during their appointments, using a delicate stylus to hand-write on the surface of her viewscreen. Her red skin reminded him a little of Bela Kiwiiks, a Jedi Master who was one of his mother’s contemporaries.

“This might come as a surprise to you, Theron, but I’m well aware it’s your job to lie and manipulate others.” She smiled again, crows feet crinkling at the corners of her clear blue eyes. “I also know that you’re exceptionally skilled at deflection, and that you tend to use that skill when presented with a question or comment you don’t feel like discussing.”

Theron felt his cheeks redden at her accurate assessment, but nevertheless opened his mouth to argue the matter – only for his rebuttal to be interrupted by the insistent chirruping from his wrist-comm. Doctor Zywes frowned at him; comms were supposed to be turned off during appointments, but he’d been waiting to hear back from Joxer for days and the twitchy slicer wasn’t the sort to leave a message.

He glanced at the offending comm and was surprised to see that it was an incoming call from one of Joxer’s associates – which generally meant one of his fellow anarchists – rather than from the slicer himself.

“I’m sorry, Doc, but I gotta take this.” Before Doctor Zywes could argue the matter Theron was on his feet and heading out into the reception area outside her office. He waved off the receptionist before she could insist on booking another appointment, and ducked out into the hall before finally hitting the button to accept the call.

_“Shan? That you?”_ The tiny blue image was fuzzy and staticky, but Theron could make out Arli, an overweight Twi’lek who worked with Joxer.

“Yeah, Arli, I’m here.” He looked around, making sure no one was paying him any attention, but the corridor outside Doctor Zywes’s office was empty. “What’s going on?”

_“Shan, you gotta get down here. Joxer’s dead.”_

O o O o O

Theron stood in the crowd gathering outside the tenement apartments where Joxer and his assortment of slicers, anarchists and ne’er-do-wells had lived – the same tenement apartments that were currently engulfed in flames. Firefighters and other emergency officials had set up makeshift barricades to keep the onlookers back, but the smoke was almost as thick as the speculation and people seemed more inclined to watch than to try to get involved. Theron knew none of Joxer’s neighbours would be likely to speak with the authorities, but he could blend in with them and listen in on their mutterings and musings, and for the most part they all seemed to agree on the same thing: the fire had been deliberate, Joxer had been the target, and Joxer was very, very dead.

Hood pulled up to cover his hair and face – and to hide the implants that were far, far too expensive to be found on anyone living in this neighbourhood – Theron did his best to fade into the crowd, shoving down the pangs of guilt whenever he thought about the dead slicer or looked around and saw the hollow-eyed hopelessness of the people the fire had displaced. He didn’t know who was responsible for Joxer’s death, but Theron thought it was a safe bet that it had had something to do with the dataspike he had asked the slicer to encrypt for him. Joxer had been an annoying little shit, but he’d been far too small-time for a hit like this, and it was no coincidence that he had been killed mere days after Theron had given him the dataspike.

Eventually the fire was put out and crisis management teams swept in to help the people who’d suddenly found their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Theron waited until the crowds cleared out and the investigators left – sadly, the investigative team didn’t spend all that much time doing their job; the tenement building wasn’t the sort of place people gave a shit about and they probably assumed the fire had been set by local Black Sun thugs. He mulled around for a couple of hours, drifting from the crowds to the Silent Sun cantina to the darkened alleys nearby, and then once the coast was clear he made his way back to the building.

The bulk of the tenement was still intact, although the damage was extensive and it would probably prove to be cheaper to tear everything down than to try to repair anything. Theron snuck around to the back, easily jimmying a lock and slipping in inside. He’d only been inside the building once – when he had delivered the dataspike to Joxer – but his memory of the place was reasonably good, even with all the damage the fire had wrought. Joxer’s apartment had been on the second floor. The elevator was down, of course (in all likelihood it had been down long before the fire; this wasn’t the sort of place where building maintenance was much of a concept), but the stairs had been built out of duracrete and were still safe enough to use.

The door to Joxer’s apartment was a non-issue, having been busted open either by someone attempting a rescue or whomever had killed Joxer, and now it was a mostly-burned hunk of plasteel and fake wood that hung half off its hinges. Theron eased it open enough to slip through – careful that it didn’t come crashing down behind him – and made his way into the apartment.

Fires were strange things, and the path that fire chose to took was often bizarre and nonsensical. It was no different with the fire in Joxer’s apartment. The walls were blackened and soot-stained, furniture reduced to ashes and rubble, but here and there he found something that had been left untouched: the model of a starship, one wing slightly melted; a single frying pan laying in the centre of the kitchen; a poster from a movie Joxer had liked, its edges charred. One man’s life, burnt down to smoke and ash.

There were enough odds and ends left intact that Theron could tell that someone had ransacked the place before setting the fire. He wondered if Joxer had been killed first, or if his murderer had tried to get the wiry little slicer to talk. Theron knew Joxer wouldn’t have given up any useful intel – the slicer had been too paranoid to trust that revealing anything would have spared his life, and he would have been obstinate enough to keep his mouth shut just to piss his assailant off.

Theron didn’t bother searching the apartment; if the dataspike was still there, he knew where Joxer would have kept it, along with any copies he might have made or decryptions he had run. The slicer had had a wall safe hidden behind the mirrored cabinet in the ‘fresher, which he had shown to Theron as proof that he was able to keep the dataspike safe when he wasn’t working on it.

Of course, if he had been working on it when his murderer showed up, then the dataspike was long gone.

The ‘fresher was somewhat less damaged than the rest of the apartment, although the floor had puddles of sooty grey water everywhere. The mirrored cabinet was little more than a melted metal husk and it took Theron several tries to trigger the latch. When it opened, it swung outward and would have crashed into the sink if Theron hadn’t caught it and gently lowered it onto the floor. The door of the wall safe was also badly damaged, but Theron was able to pry it open with a combination of brute force and a bit of metal that he thought might have come from the refrigerator unit.

Inside the safe, along with stacks of credits, datapads and other odds and ends, was the dataspike. Joxer had bundled it up with the copies he had made and a datapad of his notes; from the looks of things he hadn’t completed the decryption process, but Theron had hope that he could use the slicer’s notes to decrypt it himself.

Theron tucked the bundle in a pocket inside his jacket and left the apartment.

O o O o O

The smart thing to do would have been to head back to his own place right away and get started on decrypting the rest of the dataspike, but Theron had been avoiding doing the smart thing for most of his life and didn’t really see any reason to stop now. Besides, Joxer’s death – not to mention all the people left homeless as a result of the tenement fire – ate at him, and he found himself in rather desperate need of a drink.

Conveniently the Silent Sun cantina was right near the apartment, and so that was where Theron went.

It was some time later that he found himself sitting at the bar, trying to get the taste of ashes out of his mouth. The cantina was crowded, but it was the sort of place where people tended to mind their own business (unless they were deliberately looking for trouble) and Theron was mostly left to his own devices. He took another sip of his drink – something fruity and too sweet, ordered more because it didn’t taste like smoke than because he genuinely desired the flavour – and tried very hard not to blame himself for Joxer’s death. The little slicer had been a paranoid nutjob, but he hadn’t deserved to go out like that, and certainly not over some dead admiral’s secrets.

“Damn, Theron, somebody kill your cat?”

Theron blinked, startled by the voice practically by his shoulder. He turned and was mildly relieved to find himself staring at Ryshan Esselby, the freighter pilot he’d run into on Nar Shaddaa. The pilot was grinning at him, giving him a once-over.

“You look like shit,” Rysh announced. “I mean, _I’d_ still fuck you, but according to Risha I’d fuck a hole in the floor.”

“Thanks, Rysh,” Theron replied dryly, returning his attention to his drink. “I’m flattered to know I meet your incredibly low standards.”

“Eh, don’t be like that.” Ryshan turned so that his back was to the bar, leaning back and eyeballing Theron’s drink with something akin to disgust before ordering one for himself. The bartender brought it over quickly, along with a refill for Theron, and Rysh quickly drank a few sips of his own, grimacing. “Fuck that’s awful. I don’t know how you can stand that shit.”

Theron shrugged, starting on his fresh drink as the bartender whisked his empty glass away. He’d kind of lost count how many he’d had, but he still felt reasonably sober and so far as he was concerned that was a damned shame. “What do you want, Rysh?”

“Hey, no need for that!” Rysh grinned at Theron again, not taking any offense from Theron’s abrupt tone. That was the great thing about Ryshan: he was next to impossible to offend. (Quick to cause offense, though.) “If I’d’ve known you were gonna be here, I wouldn’t have left my new cuffs back on the ship. We could’ve had fun with those.”

Theron glanced at him, feeling his cheeks flush with more than just the alcohol. Intellectually he knew that sleeping with Ryshan was a bad idea – it was _always_ a bad idea – and that the people he wanted to wind up in bed with were somewhere in Imperial space. He didn’t even _like_ Rysh; in fact, most of the time he couldn’t stand the man. And Ryshan’s mention of restraints wasn’t even a turn-on for Theron; stars, he fucking _hated_ being restrained, it was just that for Rysh the fact that Theron hated it was part of the charm and so it was always something he brought up.

“Whaddya say, Theron?” Ryshan asked, still grinning. “What say we grab ourselves a bottle of this shit, rent a private room, and I’ll see if I can’t turn that frown of yours upside down?”

The thing about Ryshan was, he could probably have had anyone he wanted in the cantina, and he knew it. That he had set his sights on Theron was kind of flattering, and Theron – for all his intense disliking of the man and pretty much everything he stood for – was in rather desperate need of some kind of affirmation of his own worth. He’d had a shitty day, following on the heels of a shitty week, and to be perfectly, brutally honest – with himself even if with no one else – his whole fucking year had been a dumpster fire of epic proportions, and the only two bright spots in his galaxy were nowhere near Coruscant.

“Fuck it,” he said, tossing back the rest of his drink. “Let’s go.”

And so it was that Theron found himself half-drunk and mostly naked in a private room with Ryshan. The freighter captain was all roaming hands and greedy mouth, and the door was barely shut before he had the other man shoved up against the wall. Theron let himself be pushed around, groaning into Ryshan’s mouth as the pilot began working with the fastenings on his belt buckle, eager to get Theron the rest of the way naked.

“Get on the couch,” Ryshan ordered, snaking Theron’s belt through the loops and sliding it off.

Theron unbuttoned his pants as he made his way towards the couch, skimming them down over his hips and then kicking them off one leg at a time. His underwear quickly followed, and by the time he was sprawled on the couch he was already almost painfully hard. He’d had a lot of incredibly vivid dreams about his two favourite Imperials these past few nights – when he had actually managed to fall asleep – and he was tired of cold showers and taking himself in hand to address the problem.

Ryshan straddled his hips, pinning Theron down onto the couch and bending to give him a long, deep kiss. When he pulled away, grinding against Theron, he reached up and grabbed the agent by the wrists, tugging his hands up and quickly wrapping Theron’s belt around them. Theron pulled instinctively, glaring up at the other man, but Rysh gave him a wicked grin and crushed his mouth against Theron’s, forcing his lips apart with his tongue. The belt tightened, pulling Theron’s hands together, and Rysh used his own belt to tie Theron to the metal frame of the couch.

“Tonight’s safeword,” Rysh said, winking outrageously, “is Satele.”

Theron let out an angry huff, bucking upwards in an attempt to displace the other man. “Are you fucking kidding me, Rysh?”

Ryshan laughed. “C’mon, Theron, it’s not like you’re gonna be yelling your mom’s name in the throes of passion, right?” Theron couldn’t – quite – dispute the pilot’s logic, but the idea of his mother being his fucking safeword was not exactly arousing to him. And if Ryshan thought that Satele Shan brought to mind images of safety and protection, he was very much mistaken. Theron regretted ever letting on the fact that his mother was the Grand Master of the Jedi Order; he should’ve kept his kriffing mouth shut.

“Fuck you, Rysh,” he grunted – and then grunted again when the other man ground his hips down against him.

“That’s the plan, Theron,” Ryshan replied, giving him another hungry kiss.

In spite of his – admittedly minor – irritation, Theron was still horny enough to be down with Ryshan’s plans, although he wished he’d had the presence of mind to discuss what they were going to do beforehand. Drunk sex was one thing; drunk rough sex was something else entirely. And once Ryshan got started he wasn’t terribly inclined to stop and outline his master plans for getting Theron (and himself) off – yet another reason why sex with Rysh was generally a bad idea all around, fun though it might be.

Ryshan leaned forward, putting his weight on Theron’s wrists, pinning him in addition to restraining him with the belt. Theron could feel the leatheris tightening around him, just on that edge of painful, and knew he’d have red marks later – if he didn’t have bruises. After a moment Rysh settled back, giving a little shimmy that caused his groin to rub against Theron’s, and then he leaned down again, this time wrapping one hand around Theron’s wrists while the other drew a meandering trail along Theron’s torso.

Ryshan’s hand – the one not holding Theron’s wrists – came down around Theron’s throat, and suddenly it was like a switch went off in Theron’s mind.

Suddenly it wasn’t Ryshan leaning over him, pinning Theron against the couch. It was Samar, that fucking bastard who had kept him locked away inside his own mind while using his body for whatever sick, twisted pleasures he wanted. Samar, who had known Theron’s keyword and used it against him, again and again and –

By the time Ryshan had him freed, Theron’s throat was raw from screaming and his wrists had been rubbed bloody. Theron didn’t remember using the safeword – he didn’t remember _speaking_ – but Rysh had figured out that Theron wasn’t pretending. Eventually.

As Theron hurried from the cantina, his clothing hastily donned and the hood of his jacket pulled up to hide himself, he remembered why Ryshan had kicked him out of his apartment the last time they’d hooked up.

Once outside the cantina, he pulled his comm out of his pocket and, with trembling fingers, keyed in one of the secured lines. The voice-only call was accepted on the first chime.

“Hey, Doctor Zywes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies to therapists everywhere for Theron Shan, but his sentiments in regards to "can we unpack this?" are very much my own. God, do I ever hate that question.
> 
> I find the characterization of Trant to be difficult to nail down, so in my headcanon he's the exhausted chief of police, dressing down his renegade cop for the umpteenth time.
> 
> Also, Joxer was named for the Ted Raimi character on Hercules and Xena.
> 
> So ... this was a fun/not-fun chapter to write ...
> 
> And finally, I do believe I said Ryshan was an asshole, correct?


	5. Chapter 5

Vector knocked quietly on the door to the guest bedroom, not wanting to disturb the two women inside if they were still in the middle of something. He needn’t have worried: Ki’ala opened the door almost right away, and when he peeked into the room he could see that she had already begun tidying up the various supplies she used for her massages. She bowed to him, her brilliant green eyes lowered respectfully as her lekku slipped over her shoulders, then went back to packing up.

“You’ve about twenty more minutes before Master Rimon arrives,” Vector told her, stepping into the room. “In case you wished to get cleaned up before you leave.”

Ki’ala nodded, a rosy blush turning her pale blue skin an interesting shade of light purple. “Thank you, Master Hyllus, but that won’t be necessary.”

Vector had long ago given up on correcting the Twi’lek; she was a slave, and even in the absence of her owner she wasn’t willing to call him by his given name, or even simply ‘ _Mister_ Hyllus.’ He disliked being called ‘Master’ (outside of some _very_ specific scenarios with a willing partner), but not enough to risk making Ki’ala comfortable. She was an excellent masseuse and the only person besides himself that Miranza allowed anywhere near her when she was naked and vulnerable, and frankly his own comfort wasn’t worth upsetting Ki’ala. It had taken him months before the Twi’lek had even been willing to speak to him – her Basic was stilted at best, but he and Miranza were both fluent in Twi’leki – and she was almost painfully shy. He had initially thought her awkwardness around him was due to his Joiner nature – Force knew, many people were put off by his strange eyes and unusual mannerisms – but it was instead his maleness that frightened her. Ki’ala hadn’t always been a masseuse, and all of her owners had been men.

Fortunately for Ki’ala’s comfort levels she was not required to massage Vector, even if her master had other male clients on his roster. Miranza was the only person he let near his back lately, although he rather suspected Ki’ala wouldn’t be the least bit surprised by what she saw.

It bothered Vector to be making the use of a slave, even one as well-treated as Ki’ala, but no other masseuses had come as highly recommended as the blue-skinned Twi’lek and he wasn’t willing to entrust Miranza’s care to anyone less than the best. They weren’t able to tip Ki’ala or pay her directly – any credits she received had to be given to her owner – but they had been able to work out an arrangement to reward her for her services in a way that didn’t involve Master Rimon. Ki’ala had a pair of younger sisters who had managed to avoid falling into slavery, but they had done so by living on the fringes of Imperial space in abject poverty. It had been simple enough for Vector and Miranza to smuggle them into the Republic, and since that time they had been sending the girls funds and handling secret message exchanges between the sisters. It wasn’t enough, in Vector’s mind, but it was the best he could do, and Ki’ala was grateful to them.

Ki’ala had … interesting … ways of expressing her gratitude towards Miranza. At first both Vector and Miranza had been concerned the Twi’lek was only offering her sexual services as a means of paying for their assistance with her sisters, but she had eventually been able to explain that it was as much for her own enjoyment as it was for Miranza’s. Ki’ala’s preferences did not fall to men, but she was quite enthusiastically fond of Vector’s wife and so long as it was consensual who was he to argue the matter? He left them their privacy, and if some of Miranza’s languid contentment was the result of more than just a remarkably skillful massage, he was happy to see her so relaxed – and happy as well to see Ki’ala enjoying herself. Payment for services rendered could go both ways, after all.

As Ki’ala finished packing up her supplies Vector crossed the room to his wife. Miranza lay facedown on the massage table – they had purchased one of their own for their Kaas City apartment, since it saved Ki’ala having to lug her portable one back and forth – naked and glistening with pleasantly-scented oils. Her curly head was resting on her folded arms, and for a brief moment Vector thought she might have fallen asleep but as he approached her she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

“How are you feeling, beloved?” he asked her, bending to plant a light kiss behind her ear.

“Mmm, delightful,” she murmured drowsily. She had tweaked a muscle in her back during her fight with the Chiss – at first they had assumed her back pain was the result of bruising, since she'd been slammed into the shelving units, but when it had persisted Vector had insisted she see a doctor – and Ki’ala’s massage helped to ease some of the pain. Miranza had already been seeing the Twi’lek as part of her ongoing therapy for the injuries she sustained on Alderaan, and it had been simple enough to schedule in more frequent appointments to address her more recent hurts.

If only other wounds were treated so easily.

“We’ve an appointment at Intelligence in an hour, love,” Vector reminded her, stepping out of the way to let Ki’ala retrieve a dropped towel that had fallen onto the floor under the massage table. As the Twi’lek straightened, she ducked her head slightly and pressed a soft kiss over the brand on Miranza’s left hip. The gesture was affectionate, sympathetic even, but Vector had to turn away until he could master the expression on his face, quelling the sudden rise of helpless anger that surged in him every time he thought about what the Dark Council had had done to them.

Warm fingers curled around his wrist, and he looked down to see Miranza’s understanding gaze. He slipped his wrist out of her grasp and twined his fingers through hers instead, their palms touching. That contact was all he needed to bring his emotions under control, and he smiled faintly at his wife, grateful for the support they gave each other.

Miranza got up off the table a few minutes later and went to take a shower before their appointment. Vector helped Ki’ala carry her supplies to the door just as Master Rimon arrived to pick her up. Ki’ala kept her eyes focused downwards, her expression deferential as Vector went through the frustrating ritual of thanking Master Rimon for his slave’s services. Once Ki’ala and Rimon were safely off he headed back inside to change into the Imperial uniform he wore to all formal meetings with Intelligence. Miranza had already finished her shower – she preferred to linger over such things but not when they were on a schedule – and had managed to wrangle her wet curls into some semblance of order, smoothing her blonde hair back in a sleek bun before donning her makeup and uniform.

The drive to the Citadel was hampered somewhat by a sudden downpour that saw many of the pedestrians in Kaas City racing to catch taxis, but it was a short enough trip and when the two of them arrived at Sith Intelligence they still had ten minutes to spare. They were met outside one of the deputy ministers’ doors by a tall uniformed guard whose gaze lingered a little too long on Miranza’s chest for Vector’s comfort and who, when met by Vector’s own challenging stare, simply gave the Joiner a crude smirk.

The door opened a few minutes later and both Miranza and Vector moved to enter the office. Vector had enough time to take note of the six men waiting inside the room before the guard put his hand on Vector’s arm, fingers tightening around his bicep.

“Not you,” he said curtly, jerking his head in Miranza’s direction. “Just her.”

Vector frowned, confused. The two of them always met with Intelligence together. While Miranza was technically the agent in charge, it was long established that they were a partnership, and where she went, he went. It didn’t help that he saw the way Miranza’s face blanched as she noticed the six men in the office, and Vector’s innate sense of protectiveness towards his wife was ratcheted up a few notches at the sudden flash of fear he saw in her aura. She didn’t want to be alone with those men.

But it was Miranza who spoke first, not Vector. Her voice was frosty and hard.

“Take your hand off my husband,” she said, directing the command at the guard who still had a tight grip on Vector’s arm.

“Or what?” the guard asked, still smirking.

“Or I’ll _make_ you,” Miranza replied.

The guard was more than a foot taller than Miranza and probably outweighed her by a good hundred pounds, all of it muscle. Vector couldn’t see his wife’s face, but whatever the guard saw there made him seriously rethink his current tactics. The guard released Vector’s arm, so quickly one would have thought the contact had burned him.

That innate sense of protectiveness Vector felt towards his wife went both ways.

“You still can’t go in there,” the guard said, speaking to Vector. He hesitated, swallowing heavily, then added with obvious reluctance, “Uh … sir.”

Miranza turned to Vector, her face carefully expressionless. “Wait for me here.” Without another word she stepped into the office, and the guard closed the door behind her with an air of finality.

With Miranza gone Vector was left standing in the open area outside the office, pretending not to notice the guard’s scornful scrutiny. It wasn’t the first time the Joiner had been the subject of fear and discourtesy; before he’d met Miranza, Vector’s career as a diplomat had effectively ended as a result of his Joining to the Oroboro Nest, thanks to the inherently xenophobic nature of Imperial society – one of life’s cruel ironies, given that his career as a diplomat had in part led him to becoming Joined in the first place. Killiks were not widely known outside of Alderaan and Joiners seldom left the Hive, but Vector, as Dawn Herald, was an unusual case. Most people never saw past his all-black eyes and unusual speech patterns, however, and while he wasn’t ashamed of what he was – far from it, in fact – he took pains not to draw too much attention to himself.

The guard leaned up against the wall, folding his arms across his chest as he scowled at Vector. He muttered something under his breath.

Vector sighed to himself, his resolve to ignore the man dwindling in the face of his own concerns for Miranza and what she might be dealing with inside the office. “We’re sorry, we didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

“I said,” the guard said loudly, raising his voice more than was strictly necessary for the empty and relatively small waiting room, “I don’t know what she sees in a freak like you.”

Clenching his jaw, Vector replied in as mild a voice as he could muster, “You are welcome to ask her yourself when next you see her. We’re certain she will be happy to enlighten you.” In spite of himself there was a faint element of smugness in his tone – unintentional on his part, but it was hard not to feel smug when one of the most amazing people in the galaxy had chosen to commit herself to him.

The guard definitely picked up on his self-satisfaction, and it made his cheeks flush with anger. “If there weren’t holo-recorders everywhere I’d kick your freak ass just for looking at me.”

“That hardly seems like it would work to your benefit,” Vector replied blandly, “considering _freaks like us_ have something of a physical advantage over you. Or did you think the changes to our physiology ended with just our eyes?”

It took the guard a few seconds to parse the meaning behind Vector’s words, but once he caught on his face paled and he fell silent. Vector closed his eyes and pointedly turned away, nursing a small flame of bitter satisfaction at the other man’s fear. He was a little annoyed with himself for rising to the guard’s bait, but he knew the guard’s type – all talk, no action – and he had no doubt the other man would remain effectively cowed. The guard was a bully, and like most bullies he wasn’t capable of coping with someone who wasn’t afraid of him and wouldn’t allow him to intimidate them. Vector had certainly dealt with worse.

The two stood in strained silence for close to half an hour; although Vector was aware of the guard glaring at him every now and again, the man remained quiet. Just as Vector was starting to wish his Killik-enhanced senses enabled him to see through doors and walls, the office door opened and Miranza stepped out. She seemed unharmed, but there was something off about her aura and her body was stiff with tension. Vector wanted to ask her what was wrong, but this wasn’t the place for that sort of discussion.

When the guard moved to close the door behind Miranza, stepping in close enough that his uniform brushed against hers, she flinched away. The man looked at her suspiciously as if expecting her reaction towards him to be some kind of joke at his expense, but when all she did was lower her eyes – in much the same way that Ki’ala had done before, the deferential act of a slave acknowledging her superior – Vector had to fight down a sudden urge to throttle the other man at the triumphant smirk on the guard’s face. Vector's instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong, and the part of him that was Killik urged him to lash out, to protect his mate and get to the bottom of this.

Then Miranza was plastering a stiff smile onto her face as she rather pointedly took her husband by the arm, her hand resting lightly on the crook of his elbow. The guard flushed again, taking her action as a slight against himself, but he let them leave the office without further harassment.

Once outside Miranza released her grip on Vector’s arm and motioned him towards the speeder platform.

“Is everything all right, beloved?” he asked her, trying and failing to get a read on her aura. It wasn’t muted and dull the way it had been back when she had been brainwashed, but the colours were all wrong and he could practically taste the fear radiating off of her.

“It’s fine,” she said distractedly, hailing a speeder. “We’ve been given our marching orders. It looks like we’re heading back to Nar Shaddaa.”

O o O o O

After several hours of tossing and turning in bed, then finally drifting off only to wake up with his heart thundering in his chest and every nerve screaming in alarm, Theron was forced to concede that sleep wasn’t going to be coming through natural means. He threw back the covers and sat up, shivering slightly as his bare feet came into contact with the cold bedroom floor.

His apartment on Coruscant was too quiet, the soundproofing too good. If he could open a window he knew his bedroom would be flooded with the noise of the traffic outside – even in the middle of the night the city-planet was busy – but the apartment was climate-controlled and none of the windows opened even the smallest crack. He made a note to purchase a fan or some other kind of white-noise generator, and with a heavy sigh got out of bed.

The impromptu emergency session with Doctor Zywes had been emotionally exhausting, although no more so than the situation with Ryshan beforehand. After Theron’s run-in with Rysh, following so closely on the heels of Joxer’s death and his investigation of the tenement fire, he would have expected to spend the next week or so in bed. Not that Theron had time for that sort of thing.

Although Theron continued to hold back on most of the things he knew he really needed to talk about, he had made enough headway with Doctor Zywes that she was starting to connect the dots, and after Theron discussed the panic attack he’d had after Rysh pinned him (and _that_ was a cringe-inducing tête-à-tête he’d like to never, ever have again in a million years) she sat him down for a frank and incredibly direct conversation about post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety.

Theron’s education had been atypical, to say the least, but he was an intelligent, well-read man, and he’d taken courses as part of his training to be an SIS agent. He understood mental illness – or he had thought he did. He was aware of the complexities involved: the vagaries of brain chemistry, the impact of stressors and societal factors, nature versus nurture, all of that. Intellectually it was easy to tell himself that mental illness was no different than any other type of illness – if he had a cold, he’d treat it. If he broke his arm, he’d get a cast on it. Simple. Logical. It made _sense_ to treat illnesses of the mind just the same. And had it been anyone else in Theron’s life who came to him and said they were dealing with something like depression or anxiety, he would have been perfectly accepting and sympathetic.

When it came to himself, though, he couldn’t help but feel weak and ashamed, and accepting the trial medications Doctor Zywes had suggested felt like an admission of defeat. He got the prescriptions filled, in spite of his own reluctance, and had been taking the daily dose as consistently as his messed-up schedule would allow. He knew it would take some time to notice any improvements, but Doctor Zywes had impressed upon him the importance of ensuring he took his meds regularly. He had held off on the emergency medication, however, telling himself he could handle whatever was upsetting him in the moment.

Besides, drinking was a _kind_ of self-medication, wasn’t it?

Alcohol certainly wasn’t doing the trick tonight, though, and Theron was completely worn out. Maybe it was time to give the emergency meds a shot.

He padded into the ‘fresher, opening the mirrored cabinet over the sink before he had time to see his own reflection. Even with all the lights off in his apartment there was still enough ambient light from the city outside his windows that he didn’t need an extra lamp or two to illuminate his passage. He ignored the way his hands were shaking as he sorted through the various bottles in the cabinet before finally selecting the one that he knew contained the emergency sedatives Doctor Zywes had prescribed. He’d been reluctant to take them – she’d warned that they worked quickly and hit hard (which was the point: they were meant to be taken to curb the effects of his panic attacks and to help him sleep at night, not as an everyday thing), and he didn’t like the way drugs made him addle-minded and loopy. Alone in the safety of his own apartment, however, with nothing more than an exciting day of filing reports ahead of him, he decided the sedative hangover was worth it if it meant he could get a decent night’s sleep for once.

Theron opened the bottle and tilted it slightly, using the tip of one finger to carefully extract one pill. The emergency sedatives were tiny, but Doctor Zywes had elected to start him off on the lowest therapeutic dose and see how he reacted to it; she had cautioned him that it was likely they would need to make adjustments to both medications depending on his responses, and that it could take a little while before he started noticing any improvements from the daily meds. He brought the pill up to his mouth and, after a brief hesitation, popped it onto his tongue. The pill was so small he didn’t need water to help him swallow it.

Closing the bottle and putting it away, Theron closed the cabinet and then took a moment to use the facilities before heading back to bed.

The naturally inquisitive part of him wanted to go sit out on the couch and try to analyze how the sedative made him feel, rather than just head directly to bed and attempt sleep. He conceded that in his line of work it could be useful to be able to recognize the effects the drug had on him, just in case an enemy tried to use it against him (or, conversely, in case he wanted to use it on someone else – knocking an enemy out was certainly preferable to killing them), and admittedly he was just curious what it would feel like. Most of his experiences with unnatural losses of consciousness (and, unfortunately, he’d had a _lot_ of those, mostly in the form of abrupt blows to the head) had been unexpected and under life-threatening circumstances, so this was bound to be something different.

The rest of him, though, just wanted to sleep, and Theron told the inquisitive part to shut up for a change.

Theron got as far as his opened bedroom door before something – a slight change in air pressure, a shift in the room behind him, or possibly just finely-honed instinct – made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He paused, listening intently –

\- and ducked in time to avoid the hands reaching to string a garrote around his neck.

He felt the whoosh of air over his head as the hands failed to reach him and managed to dart forward into his bedroom, grabbing the door with both hands and trying to slam it closed so he could lock it from the inside. His assailant caught the door, shoving it open with one shoulder with enough force that it nearly knocked Theron off his feet. He scrambled forwards, almost tripping in his haste to get away, and tried to remember the location of the closest weapon.

Searing pain erupted along Theron’s side as the blade of a knife skimmed his flank, his ribs doing their job to protect his internal organs. He was seriously starting to reconsider his decision to not wear armour to bed; his ratty old Spies _Do It In the Dark_ T-shirt didn’t provide much in the way of protection. He clapped one hand to his side, trying and failing to ignore the blood welling up between his fingers; for one fleeting instant he was more annoyed by the fact that he was getting blood all over his favourite T than by the fact that it was _his_ blood and _someone was trying to kill him._ As his mind hastened to catch up he found his vision blurring, and he suddenly remembered the incredibly high-octane sedative he had just taken. If he didn’t work quickly, his helpful new drug would make his attacker’s job a cakewalk.

Rather than finding one of the many weapons he knew he had stashed somewhere in his apartment – to be fair, his brain was already sluggish from lack of sleep and the drug definitely wasn’t helping – Theron’s hands closed around the handle of a crowbar he’d left in his bedroom after trying to jimmy open a safe earlier in the month. Grabbing the crowbar, he spun on his heel and swung out in the direction the knife had come from. His assailant brought their hand up in time to block the attack, but Theron had the satisfaction of hearing a loud crunch and a sudden, sharp cry of pain when the crowbar connected with something solid and meaty.

His attacker took a few steps back to regroup, and then Theron was forced back on the defensive as a knife came sailing towards his face. He ducked, hearing the knife clatter harmlessly to the floor behind him, and lashed out again with the crowbar, narrowly missing his assailant.

Theron’s bedroom, like the rest of his apartment, was very small and very crowded, and there wasn’t much room to maneuver. The crowbar technically gave him reach over his attacker, but not if they intended to stand back and whip knives at him – which currently appeared to be the plan, as he only just avoided another knife by ducking at the last second. He was beginning to feel the effects from the sedative and his reflexes were starting to dull; sooner or later he wasn’t going to be able to dodge.

Charging forward, Theron brought the crowbar around in a sweeping arc, intending on using it like a bat. Before he could land the blow, however, his attacker suddenly stepped forward, catching Theron’s arm under their own and pinning it to their side before bringing their other hand up. He couldn’t help the cry of pain that left his lips as the attacker used the force of Theron’s forward momentum to jab their blade into his gut.

Theron bit his lip on another scream as his opponent twisted the knife, and before his assailant had time to pull away he suddenly jerked his head back and then slammed his forehead into the other’s face as hard as he could. There was another satisfying crunch as Theron heard his attacker’s nose break, and the arm keeping him pinned fell away. He kicked out, knocking his attacker back, and before the other person had time to regroup he brought the crowbar down as hard as he could.

There was a fleeting moment of triumph as Theron’s attacker dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, and then suddenly the ground was rushing up to meet Theron and everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Combat scenes. I choreograph them beautifully in my head, and then when I sit down to write them my brain basically just goes "Ugh, wot r werdz?"


	6. Chapter 6

There was an annoying beeping noise beside Theron’s head and it _would not_ go away.

He opened his eyes, briefly worried he had fallen asleep in the middle of the SIS Logistics division because the constant annoying beep reminded him of the monitoring station that kept track of news reports across the galaxy: each beep was a new item coming in, awaiting acknowledgment. It took his addled brains a moment to catch up, and it wasn’t until he noticed the mechanized beeps were far too consistent to be news alerts that his surroundings began to make sense. Instead of the familiar grey-walled, high-ceilinged Logistics office Theron saw gleaming white walls and a bank of medical equipment, most of which seemed to be connected to him by one wire or another. The frustrating beeping sound was the steady beating of his heart, and as full consciousness slowly returned to him his heartrate picked up a little.

_Med centre,_ he thought, sighing internally. _Fan-fucking-tastic._

On the plus side, he wasn't dead. On the negative, though ... he hated med centres. He hated being a patient even more.

Then he caught sight of the man slouching awkwardly in a chair beside his bed – a chair that looked far too small to hold his large, heavily-muscled frame – and Theron’s heart double-timed it.

“J-Jace?” he mumbled around a tongue gone suddenly dry and clumsy. He hated how weak he sounded, his voice raspy from disuse.

Jace Malcom, Supreme Commander of the Republic Military – and Theron’s father – opened his eyes, startling awake. For a brief moment he looked confused, as if he’d forgotten where he was, but when he saw Theron awake and staring at him he smiled. The movement twisted the scars on his face, making the expression look more menacing than friendly, but Theron wasn’t particularly intimidated by the man. He hadn’t known Jace for long – Theron’s mother, Satele, hadn’t told Jace she was pregnant and had effectively kept Theron and Jace hidden from each other through mutual ignorance – but the man had been making a solid effort towards establishing a relationship between them, and Theron had come to know the gruff, kind man beneath the super-soldier veneer.

Still, Theron was more than a little surprised to find his father sitting beside his hospital bed. They didn’t have _that_ close of a relationship.

“Gave us a bit of a fright, there, son,” Jace said, his voice a pleasant rumble. The nickname fell easily off his lips, making Theron blink before he realized his father called him ‘son’ in much the same way he would call any man younger than himself that; it was a nickname that, to Jace Malcom, was about as interchangeable as ‘rookie’ or ‘kid.’ It didn’t mean anything. (Even if Theron wanted it to.) “Do you remember what happened?”

Memories came crashing down on Theron – his apartment, the stranger in the shadows, the feel of a crowbar in his hands – and he lunged upright, desperate to get back to his place to make sure the dataspike was still safely concealed. He didn’t get very far, however: he barely managed to sit halfway up before sudden stabbing pain flared in his abdomen and his heart monitor began shrieking in alarm.

Jace cursed, quickly standing up and pushing Theron back down with one large hand while the other awkwardly flailed at the various buttons on the heart monitor. His panic might have been comical if Theron hadn’t been focused on relearning how to breathe without feeling as though his internal organs were about to come spilling out of him. And so it was that when the nurse came in to see what all the noise was about Jace was about two seconds away from destroying the wretched heart monitor with a blaster rifle and Theron was lying on his back gasping up at the white-tiled ceiling like a landed fish.

“Let’s just turn this off, shall we?” the Twi’lek woman murmured, completely unperturbed at the absurd comedy being enacted in front of her. She effortlessly silenced the heart monitor’s alarm before stepping in between Jace and the bed and hitting a button on another machine close to Theron’s head.

Theron felt a cool, tingly sensation in his arm, and blessed relief followed immediately after as some kind of liquid painkiller was dispensed through an IV directly into his bloodstream. Almost instantly the agony in his gut ebbed away, the disappearance of pain so sudden that its absence was practically an intoxicant all on its own. Before he had time to appreciate the painkiller’s effectiveness something heavy and warm settled over Theron as the sedatives in the IV took hold and he drifted back to sleep.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but the next time Theron awakened he was in considerably less pain. Jace was seated beside his bed again, frowning down at something on a datapad that he had resting on his knee. He looked up when Theron cleared his throat.

“Don’t sit up,” Theron’s father cautioned him, eyes darting towards the open door of the private suite. “If you hurt yourself again your nurse will yell at me. And she’s scary.”

The idea of Jace Malcom, leader of the Republic Military and probably one of the most decorated war heroes in the entire history of the Republic, being afraid of a teensy-tiny Twi’lek civilian was absolutely hilarious to Theron, and he would have laughed if he wasn’t afraid it would end up hurting.

His dilemma must have shown on his face, because Jace gave him a lopsided grin and shook his head, folding his arms across his broad chest and leaning back against his chair. The chair creaked a little under his weight.

“Now, do you think you can tell me what you remember without trying to rip another hole in your side?” Jace asked.

Theron nodded slowly, and Jace leaned forward, hitting a button on Theron’s bed that raised the top half to let him sit up a little. The mechanized motion was slow and careful, but it jostled him enough that he hissed in pain, one hand – the one that wasn’t attached to a variety of leads and an IV drip – pressed to his aching side.

As he sat up, Theron saw a uniformed soldier standing guard outside his room, and he noticed – not for the first time – that Jace was armed, although he was in civilian dress.

Jace caught him looking, and he frowned again. “Someone tried to kill you, Theron. They came pretty damned close, too. Director Trant wanted guards posted on you at all times in case they try again. What’s going on, son?”

Theron closed his eyes and bit back a sigh of frustration. “I wish like hell I knew.” He also wished he knew how much he could tell his father, but just because Director Trant had chosen to involve Jace in Theron’s protection didn’t necessarily mean that the soldier had been fully briefed on what Theron had been doing to warrant it.

Finally he settled on a suitably vague explanation. “Someone murdered one of my assets a few days ago. I think it had something to do with … something … I was getting him to work on for me.” He grimaced. “Actually, scratch that – I think I can safely assume it has to do with the work I gave him, if they’re coming after me now too.”

“And that work is …?”

“Classified.” At Jace’s stricken expression Theron sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not really sure whose bed I pissed in to warrant this kind of response, but I’d rather not drag you into my mess too.” He rubbed his free hand over his face, feeling the stubble along his jaw. Desperate to change the subject – if only to get it away from his investigation and the hurt feelings he apparently caused by refusing to bring his father into it – he latched onto the first thing that came to mind. “How did … um … How did I get here?”

Jace sighed, looking unhappy. “Your neighbour heard some kind of ruckus and called the authorities.” Theron had clearly chosen the wrong topic, because if anything the soldier seemed even more upset. “Your apartment door was open, and when they went in to investigate they found you – and a dead man lying on the floor beside you with his head caved in.”

_Better him than me,_ Theron thought, but kept it to himself. He didn’t remember causing that much damage to his attacker, but he had been pretty desperate at the time.

His father cleared his throat before continuing, “The doctors won’t give me any details on your condition, of course” no, they wouldn’t – Jace’s relationship to Theron wasn’t common knowledge, and there was no reason to give confidential medical information to him, Supreme Commander or not “but I’m told you were in rough shape when they brought you in. You’d lost a lot of blood.”

The perils of drugging himself, apparently: had Theron not taken the emergency sedative, he thought he probably would’ve been able to get himself to help – or at least call for help on a holocomm – before he passed out from blood loss. But with the sedative taking effect pretty damned quickly, he was out almost the instant his assailant went down, and the wounds he’d taken had been left untreated. No wonder he felt exhausted and half-frozen; he’d probably needed to have half his blood supply replaced. He made a mental note to send his neighbour a gift basket by way of thank-you. What was an appropriate gift for saving one’s life? A muffin basket? Bouquet of orchids? He didn’t think his 87-year-old neighbour would be terribly interested in the way he’d repaid Miranza and Vector for their assistance …

Or maybe she would. Missus Krais was a feisty old lady.

Theron began to wonder if perhaps there was a little more kick to the painkillers he’d been given than he had previously suspected, if he was pondering about muffin baskets and thanking his elderly neighbour in the form of sexual favours. Before he had a chance to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing his nurse returned, giving him a friendly smile when she saw that he was awake again. Jace straightened in his chair and offered up a friendly smile of his own for the Twi’lek, which Theron couldn’t help but notice and speculate on (at least to himself).

“Good evening, Mr. Shan,” she said, taking out a datapad as she went to review the various monitors he was hooked up to. “How are your pain levels? Manageable? Don’t be a hero,” she added, glancing briefly in Jace’s direction. “If you’re in pain I need to know.”

Theron wondered if she thought he was one of Jace’s soldiers, or if she simply dealt with the type often enough to expect a negative answer even if her patient was suffering. He gave her question serious consideration, and concluded that although his stomach hurt, it wasn’t nearly bad enough to necessitate him being given more drugs. And he certainly didn’t want to be put under; Theron figured he’d had enough of unconsciousness for the next little while, even if he still felt completely exhausted. Unconsciousness did not equate to natural, healthy, restful sleep - as he knew all too well.

“A little tender,” he admitted finally, deciding to err on the side of caution. “Definitely better than before, though.” He tried peering at the viewscreen of her datapad to see his medical information, but he couldn’t get a good angle on it. “What, exactly, was I treated for?”

The nurse blinked, looking startled – and then worried. “You don’t … You don’t know why you’re here?”

“He knows he was in a fight,” Jace clarified, hooking one arm over the back of his chair. “He’s just a little foggy on the details.”

“Oh.” The nurse blinked again, her expression clearing slightly. She looked down at the datapad, then back up at Theron. “Well, Mr. Shan, you suffered a minor laceration along your left flank which required some stitches, and a more severe injury from –“

“You can say I was stabbed,” Theron said helpfully. “It’s okay. I was there. I know.”

Jace choked back a sound that was part laugh, part cough, covering his mouth with one hand while the nurse glared between the two of them as if she wasn’t sure who to blame for Theron’s comment. She rolled her eyes, lekku twitching with what might have been suppressed mirth, and then continued.

“Fine,” she said, “you were stabbed at least once, and this wound was of significantly greater severity. You’re lucky the first responders had kolto on them, or you’d probably be a lot worse off than you are. You lost a lot of blood and surgery was required to repair the damage to your … Mr. Shan?”

Theron didn’t see his father move; in fact, for a moment he didn’t see much of anything, the nurse’s blunt words hitting him harder than he would have expected. But one second Jace was sitting in the chair and the next he was beside the bed, strong hand gripping Theron’s tightly, hard enough that Theron was sure he’d see white streaks on the back of his hand where Jace’s fingers had squeezed. As he struggled to bring his breathing and heartrate back under control he was dimly aware of Jace trying to talk him down from his sudden panic attack, the soldier’s voice low and strangely compelling.

Never in his life had Theron thought to find his father standing by his bedside, comforting him. Growing up the closest thing he’d had to a father figure had been his guardian and mentor, Master Zho, and while the old Jedi had certainly been fond of Theron he hadn’t been what one would have called paternal. He’d grown up knowing his mother had chosen to give him up, but Master Zho had never told him who his father was – indeed, Theron didn’t know if his guardian had even known – and he had expected to spend the rest of his life not knowing that information. Theron knew the Force existed (hard not to, given his upbringing) but he didn’t think it applied to him, since the Force chose not to speak to him – but he suspected it was more than mere chance that had led to Jace figuring out who he was and reaching out to him. Even so, he’d been pretty resigned to him and Jace being acquaintances at best.

Seeing the man there, feeling his strong grip on his hand, hearing his comforting voice in his ear, was a little more than Theron really knew how to process at the moment.

The nurse made an awkward sound – Theron had to wonder what she thought she was observing, whether she thought maybe Jace was just this helpful with all his troops (then again, maybe he was; Theron couldn’t claim to know) or if there was more going on than she knew – and then quietly left the room, taking her datapad with her. Theron rubbed his free hand over his eyes, pretending he didn’t notice that his hand came away slightly damp, and pulled away from his father. He might be self-consciously grateful towards the man for comforting him, but Theron had no frame of reference for how he was supposed to interact with Jace under these circumstances. Life had not prepared him for the sudden introduction of a caring and engaged parent.

“Dammit, son,” Jace said, his voice quiet, his tone indicating he meant the nickname in the literal sense. “You’re one hell of a danger magnet, you know that?” He sighed. “I suppose you come by it honestly, though, considering your mother and me. Neither one of us ever knew enough to run away from the explosions.”

Theron remained silent, choking on a host of things he didn’t know how to say. Jace didn’t seem to take offense by this, however; he just brushed himself off and ambled quietly around the hospital room, pretending to be interested in one of the paintings on the wall to give his son time to compose himself. After a moment Jace turned back to Theron, his expression thoughtful.

“You got any ideas on how you want to proceed with this, Theron?” he asked. “I assume you’re not backing away from this investigation, whatever it is.”

“No,” Theron said firmly, relieved to be back on familiar territory. “I’m really fucking not.” He looked at his father, feeling a sense of grim resolution settling over him. “Can you get into my apartment? I need you to get something for me.”

O o O o O

The courtyard outside the shopping district in Kaas City was bustling with people trying to take advantage of the rare sunny afternoon, and it was almost impossible for Miranza to find a table that wasn’t already taken. She had arrived to her meeting early, however, so she was able to stake out the table she wanted – one that was on the edge of the courtyard, rather than in the middle of everything – and wait for its occupants to finish their cafs and conversation. As soon as the laughing trio were on their way she slipped into the empty seat that afforded her the best view of her surroundings and set her datapad on the table, turning it on and opening up one of her crossword puzzles.

The invitation had come late the night before, sent to her on the Traceless network through a series of complicated encryptions from an unknown address. _Kaas Market Plaza, 1500 hours. Come alone._ Miranza couldn’t be certain who the message was from, but she had her suspicions.

Vector, predictably, had not been happy with the idea of her going alone to a rendezvous with an unknown entity, but he knew better than to suggest that she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself or that she needed a chaperone. He worried about her – that concern went both ways – but he had faith in her skills and instincts. She had managed to convince him to handle the packing for their trip to Nar Shaddaa; at this point in their relationship and in working together he knew as well as she did what supplies, clothing and gear might be necessary. If he couldn't come to the meeting with her then he might as well find something else to do or he'd just spend all his time worrying. (He would worry anyway, but at least packing gave him an outlet for his nervous energy.)

_#42 Across: Clue: Prognosticator (4 letters)._ Miranza scrawled the letters for “seer” into the boxes and took a sip of her caf, her eyes scanning the courtyard again. The crossword puzzle was an excuse for her to sit staring off into space, and she’d chosen a fairly easy one, knowing her mind wasn’t really into it today. She had too many other worries to distract her.

Everything about her meeting with Sith Intelligence bothered her, from the fact that Lana Beniko – the _Minister_ of Sith Intelligence – hadn’t been present, to the men who _had_ been there (three of them had been with the military and weren’t Intelligence operatives at all, so far as she knew), to the fact that Vector had been denied entrance. It had been bad enough being trapped in a room with six strange men (flashbacks to the rape and torture she had experienced on Alderaan had kept her up most of the night, leaving her tired and irritable and very much on edge), but being trapped there alone without her husband for support? It didn’t help that she suspected that making her feel trapped and uncomfortable had been the primary motivation for keeping Vector out in the first place, and Intelligence trying to keep her off-balance was never a good thing.

Nothing about her assignment on Nar Shaddaa suggested a need for military involvement. It was simple – almost insultingly so, in fact: she was being assigned to investigate a slavery operation that was suspected of skimming funds and possibly sharing secrets with the Hutts. This wasn’t cipher agent work; this was the kind of job newly-fledged agents were sent on. She didn’t know if she was being given the task as a deliberate insult or a test of her loyalty, and it rankled her either way. That it was a slavery operation she was investigating – when her superiors knew her strong feelings on slavery – was just another level of insult. It was bad enough that she was being forced to work for Sith Intelligence – upon penalty of death – but for them to keep handing her the sorts of jobs baby agents got sent on, after everything she’d done for the Empire …

It made her want to scream.

There was little point in complaining, however. The Dark Council had been content to let her work autonomously as a freelance contractor so long as they could be certain of her loyalty – hers and Vector’s – and she had shot that trust in the foot when she had failed to bring them Theron Shan. Miranza knew Darth Ravage in particular had practically been salivating at the mouth for a chance to get his hands on the brainwashed son of the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order, and the fact that she failed to deliver not once, but twice meant her loyalties were suspect. She and Vector were too valuable to the Empire to imprison or execute (for all that her superiors seemed content to waste their skills on cakewalk assignments), but they certainly weren’t going to be permitted the same degree of freedom and autonomy they’d had before. No, they’d been pulled back into Sith Intelligence and put on a tight leash – and that had been _after_ the Dark Council had made an example of them both. Any future failings on their part would in all likelihood be fatal, regardless of what skills they brought to the table.

_That_ had been made explicitly clear in her meeting the other day. Why it had taken three high-ranking Intelligence operatives and three Imperial military officers to get the message across remained a mystery, however. They hadn’t needed to pull her into a closed-door meeting – by herself – just to threaten her and Vector. They certainly hadn’t needed to remind her of how slowly and painfully they could murder her husband in front of her just to ensure her compliance.

She already knew. As if the slave brand on her hip – the fucking _scars_ on his fucking _back_ – didn’t serve as a painful, humiliating reminder every time she saw them.

That was the downside of love, the reason she had always avoided relationships and the entanglements they represented. If you only had yourself, then you only needed to worry about yourself. Instead, she had gone and fallen head over heels in love with Vector Hyllus, and now he was something her superiors could use against her. Force help her if they ever learned about Theron.

_#51 Across: Clue: The point where all three (3) altitudes of the triangle intersect (11 letters)._ Tapping her style against the datapad, Miranza let her eyes wander again as she tried to remember how to spell “orthocentre.” She had just looked down again when a familiar woman slipped into the chair across from her.

Even wearing a black wig and dark sunglasses, Miranza would have known Lana Beniko anywhere, and in spite of all her fears and worries she managed to dredge up a tired smile for her old friend.

“I see we’re going incognito today,” she said quietly, as Lana returned the smile and helped herself to a sip from Miranza’s cup. The Sith Lord grimaced at the excessive amount of cream and sugar Miranza had in her drink, setting the cup back onto the table with a thump.

“Indeed we are,” Lana replied. “I’m not here, you haven’t seen me, and this meeting is most definitely not happening right now.”

Miranza suppressed a twinge of misgiving at Lana’s statement. She had suspected the Minister of Sith Intelligence was who had sent her the anonymous meeting request: she and Lana had been making use of the Traceless network for years. She had already been worried about Lana’s absence from her interview at Intelligence, but now that she knew Lana wasn’t supposed to be seeing her at all sent a thrill of fear through her. Lana, and the respect Miranza had for the Sith Lord – arguably the only Sith Lord Miranza liked even a little bit – had been the only thing that had given her any comfort in her decision to return to Sith Intelligence. (Which was not so much a decision as an ultimatum where the only other option had been a horrible, painful death.) Lana could at least be trusted to do what she thought was best for the Empire, whereas the members of the Dark Council were not necessarily motivated by such aims. If Lana wasn’t supposed to be having anything to do with Miranza or Vector, that didn’t bode well for any of them.

“I see,” she said slowly, wishing she could see Lana’s eyes behind her dark sunglasses. “What’s going on, Lana?”

The Sith Lord sighed, bowing her head slightly. The straight black locks – so unfamiliar in place of her usual pale blonde hair – fell in her face, and she brushed the hair away with an irritated scowl.

“I read your report on the Staxon op,” Lana said. “It was remarkably sparse on details.”

“I did the job,” Miranza replied with a small shrug. “Staxon’s dead. What else needed to be said?”

“Well, you left out the part where you ran into Theron Shan and let him get away with military secrets.”

Miranza sucked in a breath, startled, and took a sip of her caf to buy herself time to think. She had given Theron a dataspike filled with intel, but none of it was anything she would have considered military secrets. She might have been crazy for letting him go – again – but she wasn’t “hand over top-secret intel”-crazy. The information she’d given him had just been intended to let him pass on the knowledge that Admiral Staxon hadn’t exactly been Republic material; all of the details she had on Staxon were old news – ops that had long been completed, avenues of research that he had investigated and then moved on from, nothing that Theron or his fellow operatives could use to shut down any Imperial operations.

There was a part of her that wanted to tell Lana this – that wanted to say “But that’s not what I gave him!” - but Miranza suppressed that part. There was no profit in telling Lana Beniko, a Sith Lord and the Minister of Sith Intelligence, that she had given a Republic SIS agent a dataspike filled with intelligence on an Imperial admiral. Lana was reasonable, but she had her limits. The fact that the two of them were having this conversation at all showed just how much Lana trusted her – and trusted in her judgment when it came to Theron Shan.

Lana didn’t seem to require a response from her. “Miranza, Theron’s been poking his nose into a rather large sarlacc pit, and the sarlaccs are on to him. There’s already been at least one attempt on his life, that I know of.”

“Is he … Is he all right?” At Lana’s quick nod Miranza drew in a shuddering breath, trying to will her heart to resume beating.

“He was hurt,” Lana went on, graciously pretending not to notice Miranza’s sudden panic, “but according to my sources he’s expected to make a full recovery. _But,”_ she added, holding up a finger, “we both know he’s not going to stop nosing around. I’m being shut out of this, so the details I have on his investigation and who it’s upset aren’t known to me, but if we can’t get him to back off he’s going to wind up dead.”

“You’re the head of Sith Intelligence, Lana,” Miranza said. “How could anyone be shutting you out?”

Lana made a face. “I’m the _Minister_ of Sith Intelligence, which is not the same thing at all. You know as well as I do that the chain of command goes much, much higher up. All I know is that the Imperial military is involved in this, somehow – that it’s some kind of joint Intelligence/military venture – and they certainly don’t want Republic agents sticking their noses in.”

The Sith Lord brushed the strands of dark hair from the wig away from her face again, tilting her head enough that Miranza could see her vivid yellow eyes. Her expression was serious and compelling, and Miranza had the sense that her friend was trying to will her to understand.

“Your current assignment,” Lana began, and Miranza made a face. “Yes, that assignment. You’ve me to thank for that, unfortunately, and I’m sorry for it, but I needed an excuse to get you on Nar Shaddaa. Sending you on a milk-run to investigate something you hate was an easy sell since at the moment you're rather unpopular with your superiors. If Theron continues pulling the same threads – and let’s face it, you know he will – then I have reason to believe that that’s where he’ll be headed next.”

“To what purpose?” Miranza forbore from commenting on the fact that she had Lana to blame for her latest assignment, choosing instead to focus on the more important aspect of the discussion at hand.

“I can’t tell you.” Lana gave her an apologetic smile, pushing her glasses back into place to hide her eyes once more. “The information is highly classified, although I suspect you’ll uncover it anyway once you’re there. I will warn you to steer clear from it as much as possible. I can give you the coordinates of the location where I think you’ll find Theron, but I’m hopeful you’ll be able to get to him before that point. The less he sees of that place – the less _either_ of you see of it, frankly – the better, for both your sake. And you’d best not get caught there, either.”

“Lana … I don’t know what you’re expecting from me on this. ‘Go to these coordinates, but don’t go there’? ‘Go there, but don’t look around too much’? What am I supposed to do with that?”

The Sith Lord sighed again, her expression sympathetic. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to dissuade Theron from investigating further.”

“I think you’re seriously overestimating the amount of influence I have on him, Lana.”

“Really, Miranza?” Lana smiled, but there was something decidedly unpleasant in it. “Because I think if you tell him that it’s not just his life on the line, but yours and Vector’s as well …” She shrugged expansively. “I think he might be persuaded to come around.”

She pushed her chair back and stood up, leaning down to speak directly in Miranza’s ear.

“Make no mistake, Miranza: if Theron can’t be convinced to walk away from all of this, they _will_ kill him, and then they’ll come after you and Vector – just to be on the safe side, just on the off-chance that you’re somehow responsible for his involvement. Him, they just want dead, but the two of you … You know what the Dark Council does to traitors, Miranza. There won’t be anything I can do to save you.”


	7. Chapter 7

Vector did not consider himself to be a jealous or possessive man, although he could not recall if he had always been that way or whether his more generous, understanding nature was a result of his Joining to the Nest. Killiks had no concept of jealousy, after all, and traditional Joiners – ones who were not the Dawn Herald, ones who didn’t possess the same degree of autonomy that Vector had – did not generally commit themselves to non-Joiners. In any event, his relationship with Miranza would never have worked had he been prone to jealousy; a certain measure of understanding and open-mindedness was necessary in their union.

He wasn’t jealous or possessive, but it still required an act of iron will for him to repress the urge to hammer Giarmat’s security guards into paste for the way they looked at his wife.

There were other ways to gain access to Giarmat, the slaver whose operation Miranza and Vector were investigating on Nar Shaddaa as their official reason for being on the city-planet. The man’s security was reasonably good, but Vector knew Miranza was better, and the two of them could easily have broken into Giarmat’s cantina after Giarmat had gone home for the night. There was no need for this ridiculous subterfuge save that _this_ was the way Miranza’s handlers at Sith Intelligence wanted her to tackle the assignment.

It was insulting for an agent of Miranza’s calibre to be micromanaged to such a degree. One did not dictate the terms of a cipher agent’s operation to her; at such a high level of skill it was assumed that she could plan and execute her maneuvers on her own, without direction from command. That her handlers had designed her mission for her suggested a deep lack of respect for her skills and experience, and it was obviously intended as a slight against her.

It had been somewhat reassuring to know that Lana Beniko had suggested this particular assignment for Miranza as a means of getting her on Nar Shaddaa without drawing too much attention to her search for Theron. Lana had chosen Giarmat’s slavery operation because she had known Miranza would find it distasteful and unpleasant, and because assigning Miranza a distasteful and unpleasant (and insultingly simplistic) task would please Miranza’s higher-ups, as they continuously sought to punish her for her departure from Intelligence. If Vector discovered Lana had also had a hand in detailing how Miranza was expected to execute her assignment, however, he was going to be extremely cross with the Sith Lord.

The dancer’s outfit was skimpy, to say the least. It would have been more flattering on a curvier woman – the tiny bra and panties that made up the bulk of the outfit were designed to showcase assets that Miranza simply did not possess, regardless of how attractive she was. Miranza was slender and athletic, not buxom or especially curvaceous. Nonetheless, the flimsy scraps of red fabric highlighted her smooth, pale skin, and judging by the leering grins the security guards were giving her the attire was serving its intended purpose. Much to Vector's annoyance.

She simpered and wriggled as the guards searched her with rather more thoroughness than was required. Vector, meanwhile – clad in a dark business suit and with glasses back in place to hide his all-black eyes – could have hidden an assault cannon inside his jacket for all the attention the guards gave to him. It was easy enough for him to sneak in a blaster pistol and a pair of vibroknives, even if Miranza’s costume required her to go unarmed – save for the bracers she wore, which looked to the casual observer to be a modified version of stun cuffs. The bracers _did_ have the capacity to stun, but Miranza was not the intended recipient.

Miranza’s face was carefully expressionless as she endured the guards’ search and their roving, pinching hands, but Vector could see the anger and humiliation in her aura and the tension in her body. A year ago she would have been less bothered by all of this; a year ago she would have found humour in how dismissive the guards were of the threat Vector posed as they failed to search him in favour of groping her. After the abuse she had endured at the hands of Samar and later the thugs of House Ulgo, however, it was all she could do to keep from breaking down or lashing out.

And Vector, meanwhile, had to stand back and watch, even knowing as he did how much she hated all of this.

He understood the necessity to have a cover assignment to explain their presence on Nar Shaddaa. They were under too much scrutiny to just go hunting Theron down all willy-nilly, and Vector appreciated Lana’s willingness to assist them by arranging for them to be assigned on the Smuggler's Moon. Miranza had contacts at both the Imperial and the Republic spaceports, there to inform them when Theron made an appearance, and until the SIS agent landed on the Hutt city-planet the best thing to do would be to complete the task they had officially been assigned. Vector hoped Theron arrived soon, however; it would raise some alarms if Miranza took a month or so in handling an operation any wet behind the ears agent could do in a week.

At last the guards finished their “search,” one of them giving Miranza’s backside a cruel pinch that made her yelp before pronouncing her free of weapons. As expected they paid her bracers little heed; at most the bands of metal looked intended to be hooked together like handcuffs or fixed to a length of chain as a lead – they didn’t look like the weapons they were. Miranza could fight unarmed, of course, but it was something of a relief to Vector to know that she wouldn't need to.

After a cursory glance and a desultory pat-down that predictably found none of the weapons Vector had hidden on himself the two of them were admitted into Giarmat’s offices at the rear of the cantina, the security guards closing the door behind them.

Vector and Miranza had used this play before, many times, switching the roles between them. They were both fit and attractive, and his status as a Joiner made him something of a novelty on the slave-trading circuit. Before, however, it had always been their choice; they had been the ones to decide that ‘dancing girl (or ‘Killik Joiner slave’) and slave trader’ would be the most effective tactic to utilize. It wasn’t forced upon them like this.

And they hadn’t chosen to use this tactic since Alderaan. After Alderaan – after everything Miranza had gone through there and the slow, painful recovery she’d made since then – Vector wouldn’t have suggested this path for all the credits in the galaxy.

He had to admit that Miranza carried herself well, however. If he hadn’t seen the brief panic that had flickered in her eyes when she’d fastened the shock collar on herself – if he couldn’t see the anxiety and discomfort in her aura, or read the lines of tension in her body as easily as he could read the words on a page – he might never have known how much this bothered her. By that same token, however, Vector knew he was doing a remarkable job of hiding his own feelings on the matter. If she could stomach being the target of so much unwanted attention, he could stomach witnessing it. Even if there was a part of him that was mentally assessing the number and quality of guards between them and the exits, how far the two of them would be able to get before they were caught, and whether or not it was worth abandoning mission parameters in order to burn this seedy little cantina to the ground.

Giarmat was predictable: his beady little eyes lit up with lascivious glee at the sight of Miranza; he even went so far as to lick his thin lips, practically salivating at the thought of adding her to his dancing girls roster. The slaver directed all of his questions towards Vector, having little interest in Miranza for her speaking skills, but his interrogation was haphazard at best; he didn’t really care why Vector should choose to be selling this particularly desirable dancer, so long as _he_ was the one to whom she was sold. It was a shame, really; Miranza and Vector had fabricated an elaborate cover story between them to explain why a human Imperial woman should have landed in Vector's custody as a slave and his motivations for selling her. Giarmat, for all that he was supposed to be a fairly high-ranking slave trader within his own organization - who was _supposed_ to be using his ill-gotten gains to funnel funds to the Empire - seemed to be woefully inept when it came to his own security and well-being. He had none of the suspicion Miranza and Vector had expected in a professional slaver. Even Vector’s unusual pronoun choice was ignored as an affectation, as it had been suggested that Vector represented a consortium of slave owners rather than operating on his own. When he referred to himself as ‘we,’ Giarmat assumed he was speaking on behalf of the consortium as a whole.

It was, as expected, ridiculously easy for Miranza to gain access to the inner sanctum of Giarmat’s office. An agent fresh out of basic training could have handled this operation. That it had been assigned to Miranza was insulting all on its own.

Vector waited, quashing his own misgivings and anger, as Miranza disappeared into the private ‘interview room’ with Giarmat, the slaver having announced his desire to examine the 'goods' Vector was selling on a more intimate level. There could be no mistaking Giarmat’s intentions, his hands already reaching for the strings holding Miranza’s bottoms in place, and Vector’s hands balled into tight fists as the door closed behind them.

This was a cakewalk, Miranza had assured him. This was exactly the sort of assignment a freshly-minted agent would be handed, she had told him. This sort of assignment served a dual purpose: it provided the new agent with insight into the dangers and depravities inherent in the work she had chosen, and it enabled her to prove her resolution and loyalty to Intelligence. If the new agent couldn’t complete the task then both she and her handlers would know that fieldwork was not for her. (Ostensibly she would be reassigned to some other section of Intelligence - analytics, perhaps, or logistics.) On a purely intellectual level Vector understood the purpose behind such an assignment, but he would not be the man that he was if he didn’t find it horrifying that a new agent’s handlers would set her up to be molested and humiliated as a means of testing her devotion. It was bad enough that _any_ agent would be subjected to this sort of treatment – at least cipher agents could make the decision to do this on their own – but for someone fresh out of the academy and new to the world of espionage it seemed particularly cruel. Handlers were supposed to protect and support their fledgling agents, not set them up to be mistreated and potentially traumatized. There was throwing baby in the bath water and seeing if she could swim, and then there was whatever _this_ was.

And in this particular instance, given that Miranza’s handlers at Intelligence had insisted upon this specific course of action without any say-so from her, Vector found his indignation increasing. Whoever had designed this operation had had access to Miranza’s dossier; they would have had to, in order to be able to determine her skillset. Someone at Intelligence had read Miranza’s file, had seen what had happened to her on Alderaan, and had still decided that forcing her to subject herself to sexual assault – forcing her to pretend to be a slave, to wear a _slave collar_ – was the best means of accomplishing their task.

It was cruel, it was intentionally insulting and degrading, and it was absolutely despicable.

Vector found himself thinking – not for the first time since he and his wife had been forcibly ‘re-recruited’ into Sith Intelligence – that this was not the Empire he had chosen to serve.

_Cakewalk,_ he thought, his angry gaze burning metaphorical holes in the closed office door. _Like bloody hell it is._

Then the door opened and Miranza – fully clothed, insofar as the dancer’s outfit constituted clothing, and apparently unharmed – stepped out. Behind her Vector caught a fleeting glimpse of Giarmat, slumped over his desk but still breathing. For a fleeting instant the Joiner couldn’t decide if he was relieved she hadn’t killed the man – Intelligence had been very specific on keeping him alive until such time as it was determined whether or not he _was_ actually stealing from the Empire – or disappointed that he hadn’t met a slow, painful end. Miranza met her husband’s gaze and motioned for him to initiate the next step of their charade.

Given that it was a certainty Giarmat would have wanted to purchase Miranza, they needed to fabricate a reason for why he had _not._ Giarmat was out cold and likely wouldn't recover until Vector and Miranza were long gone, but his guards would still be waiting outside the office door and it would be necessary to put on a show for them. Steeling his resolve, Vector drew in a deep breath and clamped his hand around Miranza’s wrist, between her hand and the edge of the bracer. With his free hand he yanked open the door and shoved Miranza through it, hurling invectives at her as the two startled guards watched on with amusement.

Vector had no memory of what he said to her, save that it seemed to do the trick. This, too, was a role they had played before: the irate owner whose slave just cost him what could have been an exceedingly lucrative business transaction. A year ago they would have laughed about it afterwards, but now Vector just wanted the whole thing over with. Now it just made him feel sick.

“Give the Master time to calm down,” he said, as he passed the two guards, “and then give him our humblest apologies and assurances that this slave will be punished for her transgressions against him. This will never happen again, mark our word.”

Before the guards could comment Vector was hauling Miranza out of the cantina, his hand still wrapped tight around her wrist. The fact that the guards didn’t immediately rush to Giarmat’s aid spoke volumes as to their degree of loyalty towards him – yet another reason this assignment was far beneath Miranza’s skills as an agent. Lax security, indifferent target, lazy guards: Miranza could have done this in her sleep, and a year ago nothing about it would have bothered her in the least.

Vector released his grip on Miranza’s arm the moment they were outside the cantina and away from any scrutiny. Before he could open his mouth to apologize to her he saw that she was frantically scrabbling at the fastenings of the slave collar, desperately trying to find the clasp to unlatch it. Her hands were shaking.

The collar, like her bracers, had been heavily modified. Vector was willing to play his role to the hilt, but a man had his bloody limits and his willingness to commit to this charade did not extend to permitting his wife to be shocked by the collar around her neck. Even with the collar modified, however, he could see that she was on the verge of panic at wearing it – he had seen the flash of fear in her eyes when she had first put the thing on but she had assured him then that she would be fine. Clearly she had been mistaken, because now her hands were shaking too badly to deactivate the locking mechanism and her face had taken on a ghastly hue.

“Get it off me, Vector!” she pleaded with him, her eyes wide with rising panic. _“Please,_ get it _off!”_

A year ago they would have kept up their roles until they reached the safe house. A year ago she would have been comfortable with him dragging her halfway across Nar Shaddaa, and while he couldn't have said he would have been comfortable with it himself, he would have been willing to play the role assigned to him, to support her to the best of his own abilities. Now, however, the best Vector could do to maintain their cover was to haul Miranza into a nearby alley before anyone saw them. As soon as they were out of sight he released the catch on the collar, wrenching it away from her neck before Miranza lost complete control of herself. Tossing the collar onto the ground beside him, Vector removed his glasses and then cupped his wife’s face between his hands, tilting her head up so she could meet his gaze.

His first thought was that Giarmat had hurt her, but he could see no marks on her, and they hadn’t been alone in the inner office long enough for the man to do much beyond pawing at her – not that that wasn’t bad enough, of course. Vector ran his thumbs lightly over her cheeks, grateful that his own degree of self-control kept his comforting touch free of the trembling fury that coursed through him.

“He didn’t hurt you,” he murmured: part question, part reassurance. She shook her head, struggling to control her breathing. He smiled, relieved, then leaned in and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

It was meant to be a chaste kiss – a gentle brush of the lips to reassure and bring comfort. The moment their mouths touched, however, Vector felt his wife’s hands twist around the lapels of his jacket, pulling him in closer. She made a desperate keening sound, her lips parting under his, and then her tongue was in his mouth and he was up against the cool duracrete wall, her warm, scantily-clad body pressing tightly to his.

Few things were less arousing to Vector’s mind than standing in a grungy back alley on Nar Shaddaa after having witnessed his wife being groped by thugs and slavers. He was uncomfortably aware of their surroundings: the graffitied walls, the garbage strewn about, the unpleasant odour of stale urine and days-old trash, the people walking about just beyond the alley’s entrance. But then Miranza brushed her palm over the front of his trousers, cupping him through the thin fabric, and the sudden rush of blood to his cock forced him to acknowledge that _certain_ parts of his anatomy didn’t give a damn about propriety or waiting for a more appropriate time and place. Vector groaned, letting out a surprised gasp that was swallowed by her hungry, desperate kisses as her clever fingers unfastened his trousers and a warm, soft hand curled around his cock.

“Not here,” he managed to gasp out between kisses, trying to draw back. Her lips found the pulse-point along his neck, her fingers stroking him. “We can attend to you at our leisure back at the safe house.”

“I don’t want to feel him on me, Vector,” Miranza replied, looking up at him. He could see the fear and shame in her eyes, tarnishing her desire for him, and that as much as her words filled him with fresh anger – not at her, but at the people and the circumstances that had put those emotions in her. His strong, confident, _amazing_ wife was feeling shameful and vulnerable, and it infuriated him that that should be so - that anyone could make her feel this way. Giarmat and his callous, inept security guards had put their hands all over her, and that was just _wrong._

For all that at his core being Vector was a kind and gentle man, he was still a Killik Joiner, and the Killiks were an apex predator species. On top of that he was the Dawn Herald, the Joiner whose purpose was to serve as a warrior and emissary for his Nest. Killiks did not understand jealousy or possessiveness, but the human part of Vector understood those emotions all too well even if they weren’t natural to him, and that human part combined with the Killik part to create an extremely intense reaction to Miranza’s words. The apex predator and warrior in Vector was furious that another being had dared to touch his mate against her will, and as much as he wanted to storm back into the cantina and tear Giarmat apart with his bare hands, his mate was offering him another outlet – filthy, grungy alley and possible exposure be damned.

Vector growled low in his throat, using his grip on Miranza to spin her around so that she was the one pressed up against the wall, his body flush against hers. His mouth captured hers, a hard, hungry kiss into which he poured all the fury he felt at the mistreatment she had experienced and his desire to make it right with her. He tugged her lower lip between his teeth, delighting in the whimper that escaped her, his hands releasing her face in order to slide down and cup her breasts over her bra. Wanting more contact, he slipped his hands inside the cups, the gasp she made when he stroked his thumbs over her nipples sending liquid fire pooling below his belly. He was rock-hard in the circle of her fingers, groaning into the curve of her neck as she stroked him with a rapid, insistent motion.

Pushing her up against the wall, Vector slid one hand down, grabbing her by the thigh and hooking her leg over his hip. His other hand moved between her parted legs, tugging aside the flimsy scrap of fabric that covered her so that he could run his fingers over her exposed core. She whimpered again when he slid first one, then two fingers inside of her, finding her wet.

“Please, Vector,” she murmured, her head falling back against the wall, exposing her throat to him.

Their filthy surroundings and the threat of discovery ceased to hold any import for Vector. He lifted her, hands hooked under her thighs as she guided his cock into her. She let out a muffled cry as he entered her in one swift stroke, slamming her back against the wall, his mouth latching onto the soft skin of her neck. He thrust hard and fast, their present circumstances affording him little time for his usual finesse. Miranza fisted her hands in his hair, tugging hard on the dark strands, pulling his head tight against her neck. He bit her, delighting in the shuddery gasp that elicited, worrying at her fair skin with his lips and teeth, already beginning to lose the rhythm of his thrusts as he felt her wet, tight core clamping down around him.

“Harder,” she moaned, and he snapped his hips forward, his fingers digging into her flesh, his nails leaving crescent-shaped imprints behind.

Vector bit down hard, hearing her cry out as that sudden rush of painful pleasure was enough to tip her over the edge. His mouth sucked at the spot his teeth had marked, her answering shudders and cries spurring him towards his own completion. His thrusts became a bit more frantic, his bruising hands on her backside the only thing holding her up as he slammed her back against the wall. Miranza tightened her grip on his hair, twisting his head to one side to bare his neck to her, and when he felt her bite down on the spot where his neck met his shoulders he couldn’t help the animalistic groan that escaped his lips. His vision whited out for a moment as he came inside her.

He kissed her, tasting blood from where she had bitten herself in an effort to quell some of her cries. As he pulled away he saw the reddened skin, already darkening to bruises from where he had bit her, and knew he’d have an answering bruise of his own from her. Lowering her gently to the ground, he tucked himself back inside his trousers and then helped her adjust her own more revealing clothing, retying the laces on her panties to tighten them back into place.

Now that the moment was over self-consciousness returned, and Vector glanced towards the end of the alley, realizing that the entire Dark Council could have been watching them and he wouldn’t have cared. Mercifully they were still alone, their frantic coupling apparently having gone unnoticed. He cleared his throat awkwardly, intending to apologize for the marks he’d left behind on Miranza’s fair skin – with the skimpy clothes she wore it would be next to impossible to disguise what they’d been doing, and they still had to get back to their safe house.

“It just looks like you paused to sample the goods,” Miranza said pragmatically, before he could speak. She readjusted the cups of her bra, tightening the straps to provide better support. The fear and panic were gone from her eyes and she sounded more like her usual self – in fact, if anything, she sounded amused.

Shaking his head in bemusement, Vector ran the tip of his finger over her lower lip, wiping the last of the blood away before leaning in to kiss her again. As he pulled back he murmured, “We know we do not need to say it, but we are here for you, whatever you need.”

Miranza smiled, blinking away the sudden misting in her eyes, and kissed him back. He thought she might have been about to say something when his wrist-comm chimed, alerting them both to an incoming transmission. After a brief moment to make sure they were both decent, Vector accepted the call, the tiny blue holographic image of Miranza’s contact at Deucalon spaceport appearing almost instantly above his out-stretched arm.

_“Agent Shan just made an appearance at the spaceport, sir.”_

O o O o O

“I thought you said you could slice this system!”

Ryshan’s voice was nearly drowned out by the shrieking klaxons, but Theron could still make out the distinct note of mockery in it. If Rysh was concerned by the noisy alarms and flashing red lights he gave no indication, leaning up against one of the terminals with his arms folded across his chest, an expression of bored disdain on his face.

Theron was pretty sure it had been a mistake to bring Ryshan along with him to Nar Shaddaa, but he had needed a pilot. More specifically, he had needed a _ship,_ and Rysh practically had his own fleet. Not only that, but Rysh had a tendency not to ask difficult questions, and provided Theron could pay his exorbitant fees – which he could, barely – he didn’t really care why the SIS agent had needed discreet transportation to the Smuggler’s Moon. Even so, Rysh had been an awkward, slightly unpleasant traveling companion whose usefulness was rapidly being exceeded by the amount of frustration he caused. Theron would have left him behind in the safe house - or at one of the many cantinas - if it weren't for the fact that Ryshan was his only backup.

“I _can,_ ” Theron snapped, closing his eyes and running himself through a brief meditation exercise Master Zho had taught him years ago. _One, two, three … exhale._ He opened his eyes again as he let out his breath in a long, slow huff, calm temporarily restored, and focused his gaze on the security station, his fingers flying over the console.

_“Sure_ you ca –“ The alarms shut off before Ryshan could finish his sentence, the open room going deathly silent. “Oh. Well done.”

Theron bit back a sarcastic reply, wiping sweat off his brow. The encryption on the archive facility had been tougher than he’d expected, but his implants gave him a lead up on slicing into the system. Even so he knew they had a limited amount of time before –

Blaster fire struck the console next to Ryshan, causing the startled pilot to let out a muffled curse and dive for cover. Drawing his own blasters from their holsters Theron ducked behind the terminal he’d been working at, turning in the direction of the shots to see a squadron of armour-clad enforcers bearing down on them.

_Okay,_ he thought, taking aim and firing. One of the security guards went down with a cry, clutching his knee. _This looks bad._

Before he had time to formulate a plan – which, frankly, probably wouldn’t have been much more complicated than _get them_ – two more of the security guards dropped, felled from behind by a couple of well-aimed sniper shots. A flash grenade went off in the middle of the remaining guards and Theron found himself just as dazed as his enemies by the sudden bright light. When his eyes cleared the security guards were all dead, and two familiar figures were standing over the bodies.

“Hello, Theron,” said Vector, as Miranza bent to retrieve one of her knives. “Fancy meeting you here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter didn't _quite_ work out the way I had envisioned it, but it serves the purpose of getting me to the next part of the story and brings the band back together. Plus a little angsty smut, I guess?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dark and it fought me every freaking step of the way.

Miranza and Vector had a safe house on Nar Shaddaa north of the Slippery Slopes cantina. It wasn’t the sort of tiny crash pad that Theron was accustomed to working for the SIS; Director Trant had established safe houses all over the galaxy, but they were small, crowded affairs more akin to boltholes than proper apartments. The Imperial spies, on the other hand, had a sprawling apartment with all the finest amenities and enough room to host a party for everyone Theron knew, and for what felt like the hundredth time he was forced to acknowledge the fact that he wasn’t getting paid _nearly_ enough if this was the kind of lifestyle that espionage paid for in the Empire.

After the grand tour – because their apartment was actually large enough that a tour was warranted, and given how much of a premium there was on properties on Nar Shaddaa the sheer square footage was impressive all on its own – and a quick break to change out of armour (and why did it not surprise Theron that Miranza and Vector had spare clothes for him?), the three of them made themselves comfortable in the spacious living room. Ryshan had quickly made himself unwelcome by virtue of aggressively flirting with Miranza while simultaneously being incredibly rude to Vector (neither Theron nor Miranza had missed the disgusted look Ryshan had given Vector when he caught sight of his inhuman eyes, and any hopes the pilot might have had about making a good impression had vanished in a heartbeat). Fortunately the cantina was nearby and Rysh could find other ways to amuse himself besides pissing off three people who could kill him with a pair of toenail clippers.

They hadn’t had time to talk while they were in the Imperial archive facility. Miranza and Vector had arrived in time to rescue Theron and Ryshan from the first wave of security, but once the alarms were triggered there was no way to shut them off without having access to a specific set of passcodes and keys, none of which any of them knew because they were changed every single day. (And the fact that an _archive,_ of all places, had _that_ kind of security intensified Theron’s need to know more about the place.) They’d had to book it out of there, but not before Theron was able to download some heavily encrypted files.

The dataspike Jorgan had located, the one Joxer had lost his life over, had provided the coordinates for the archive facility, but that had been about all Theron was able to pull from the files. The encryption on the dataspike was simply too good, and while Theron knew other slicers who might be able to help he was reluctant to endanger anyone else. He might have felt more comfortable involving SIS slicers since they knew the risks their job entailed, but if _he_ couldn’t break the encryption then he didn’t know anyone else in the SIS who could. Joxer’s friends in the anarchists were good and could do the work, but Theron wasn’t keen on getting anyone else killed – and once word had gotten out about Joxer’s death, most of his contacts in that arena had dried up or disappeared. People tended to lose interest in work that might result in their homes and livelihoods being burned to the ground and their throats slit in a back alley somewhere. The archive facility had been Theron’s best hope of continuing his investigation, and all he had to show for it was some files he wasn’t sure he could slice.

That, and a pair of Imperial agents telling him to back the fuck off.

Granted, Miranza and Vector weren’t being so crude as to say that, but there was no mistaking their urgency and their deep desire for Theron to drop the investigation. And they wouldn’t say why, other than that it was dangerous – and _that_ wasn’t a good enough answer for Theron, because since when had he _ever_ backed down because something wasn’t safe?

The trip back to their safe house was intended as a compromise: they could sit and talk in relative safety and comfort, without the risk of anyone overhearing them or armed security teams crashing their conversation.

After they’d changed into more comfortable clothing and made themselves slightly more presentable, Vector disappeared into the kitchen area to make tea. Theron could have used something a little stronger, but he supposed all three of them were technically still on the clock. Vector returned shortly, carrying a tray with all the necessary accoutrements for tea; he set the tray on a low table between them and began to serve. The Joiner knew Theron and Miranza well enough that he didn't need to ask either of them what they took in their tea, he simply poured, prepped and handed them both their cups. Theron took his, cupping it between his hands, letting the warmth sooth him. The tea was pleasantly fragrant, some kind of herbal blend with a faint hint of spice; that spice, combined with a couple teaspoons of honey, reminded Theron rather strongly of Vector himself.

“I just want to know how you were able to find me,” Theron was saying, for what felt like the hundredth time.

Miranza sighed. “You already know we can’t tell you that, Theron.”

Theron ran his hands through his hair before turning a beseeching gaze on Vector. “I flew to Nar Shaddaa on a smuggler’s ship, using forged documents to get through customs. Rysh is an asshole, but he knows what he’s doing. And to top it all off, you didn’t just know I’d be on Nar Shaddaa, you knew I’d be in the archives. Were you waiting for me? Am _I_ your target now?” He pressed a hand to his still-healing side; the shallow slash he’d received over his ribs was fully healed, but the deeper wound was still tender and he’d been warned against engaging in too much physical activity – a warning which he’d promptly ignored in favour of hauling jets off Coruscant to continue his investigation. Even under the best of circumstances he didn’t think he could take both Miranza and Vector in a fight, and right now he wasn’t exactly in top form. If they wanted to forcibly remove him from the picture, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do to stop them.

Not that he thought they were on the Smuggler’s Moon to kill him. They’d already proven, time and again, that there was a line they weren’t willing to cross when it came to him. But they had other methods besides murder to get him out of the way.

Vector and Miranza exchanged glances. Theron had noticed in the past that the two of them appeared to be able to communicate without the use of speech, and this seemed to be what they were doing now. He didn’t know if it was some aspect of Vector’s Joiner nature that enabled him to better understand Miranza, or if it was simply the result of their lengthy partnership, but seeing it in action gave Theron a small pang at the realization he’d never experienced anything like what the two of them had.

“Technically speaking,” Miranza said carefully, after a small nod from her husband, “we’re here investigating something completely unrelated from you. As far as we’re concerned – as far as our reports to Sith Intelligence will be concerned – Theron Shan was never on Nar Shaddaa, or if he was, we had no contact with him and were unaware of his presence. We most certainly were not in that archive facility and we were absolutely not in any way responsible for the deaths of multiple Imperial-aligned security guards.”

Theron sat back in his chair, staring at the two of them. He remembered thinking the weapons they had used – a sniper rifle for Miranza and a pair of blaster pistols for Vector, who was normally a close-quarters combatant – seemed heavily modified, but he hadn’t had time to investigate the matter more closely. Now that he was thinking about it, however, he thought perhaps the modifications had been made to give the impression that the security teams had been killed using standard Republic-issue weaponry. The scorch marks on their bodies had more closely resembled those left behind by typical Republic blasters, rather than those used by Imperials. And the armour that Vector and Miranza had been wearing had been especially nondescript, without any markings whatsoever. Anyone investigating what had happened at the archive facility would reasonably assume it had been the work of Republic soldiers and infiltrators.

“Nobody sent you?” Theron asked, an awful feeling settling in his stomach.

“Officially, no,” Miranza answered. “Unofficially, Lana was the one who tipped us off. She told me someone tried to kill you?”

Theron closed his eyes, his hand dropping to the hem of his shirt. He raised it slowly, baring the stab wound he’d received. He heard Vector’s sharp inhalation of breath and Miranza’s muffled curse, and when he opened his eyes again the two Imperials were exchanging glances again.

“Theron,” Vector began, then paused. He looked at Miranza, and this time she was the one who nodded encouragement. He started again. “You need to walk away from this. _We_ need you to walk away from this.”

“I don’t get what all the fuss is about,” Theron replied, forcibly quashing down the urge to argue the matter more since it had been getting him nowhere for the past hour and change. He set his teacup back on the table with a small thump. “What the kriff was Admiral Staxon involved in, and why is it so important that I not stick my nose into it?”

“We can’t tell you –“

“We don’t _know,”_ Vector interrupted his wife, shooting her another look. Miranza’s mouth closed with an audible click, and she folded her arms across her chest. “We were sent to kill the Admiral before he could defect to the Republic – thus ends the extent of our involvement with him. We’ve already given you everything we know about the man; that was all on the dataspike we gave you.”

“Nothing we had should have led you here, Theron,” Miranza said. “We didn’t even know this place existed until Lana directed us here – to find you.”

“Okay.” Theron took a sip of his tea, grimacing as he realized it was already going cold. “So Lana knew about this place. She could …” He trailed off. Lana wasn’t going to tell him anything, not if she’d sent Miranza and Vector to try and convince him to drop it. Did that mean Lana was somehow involved in all of this? She was the Minister of Sith Intelligence … “Did … did Lana have my slicer killed? Did she send that guy to kill me?”

It was impossible to keep the hurt out of his voice. Lana was his friend – or at the very least, they had been allies. She had been one of the people who had tried to save him, for kriff sake! Back when Theron had been kidnapped by the Star Cabal, Lana had assisted Jonas Balkar in looking for him, and had been the one to bring Miranza and Vector in. He owed her his life.

Lana was also a Sith Lord and the Minister of Sith Intelligence. And once upon a time, not all that long ago, she had arranged for Theron to be kidnapped and tortured on the off-chance that he would be able to acquire information they desperately needed on the Revanites’ plans. Lana was a professional; she was ruthlessly pragmatic. If she thought Theron was doing something that might put the Empire at risk … yeah, he could see her arranging to have him quietly murdered. She'd probably feel bad about it, but she'd still do it.

But if she had arranged for Joxer’s death, and for the attack on Theron himself, why in the galaxy would she then send Miranza and Vector to meet with him?

Theron dropped his head in his hands, groaning. None of this made any kriffing sense.

“We don’t think Lana was involved in what happened to your associate,” Vector said carefully, after another silent exchange with Miranza. “And we are positive she didn’t send anyone after you.”

“Lana’s being left out of the loop here, Theron,” Miranza said, sounding much more confident than her husband. “Whatever this is, it goes higher than her. It’s over all our heads.”

“All the more reason I shouldn’t let it go,” Theron replied stubbornly. “Whatever I uncover, I can share it with you two, and you can pass it on to Lana. Her bosses are keeping secrets from her – that’s got to piss her off, right?”

“Theron – ”

“Theron, they’re going to kill you if you don’t drop this,” Miranza said, cutting Vector off.

“I can take care of myself.” Force knew, he’d been doing it most of his life.

Miranza threw her hands up in the air, letting out a frustrated sigh. _“Clearly_ you can’t, because –”

“Theron.” Once again it was Vector cutting Miranza off, and his voice was urgent as he leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “This isn’t just about you. _Think._ The information you retrieved, which led you to come back to Nar Shaddaa and investigate the archive facility – where did you get it?”

“It was hidden with Staxon’s affects,” Theron answered, shrugging. He didn’t feel that he was giving any secrets away – they had already made the connection, and if they hadn’t given him the intel, he had to have gotten it from somewhere else.

“Yes, and who did you run into while attempting to bring the Admiral in?” Vector’s voice had a desperate note in it, and Theron realized that the Joiner’s hands were white-knuckled where they gripped his knees.

“The two of you.” _Shit._ “But _you_ didn’t give me the intel. You had nothing to do with me coming here.”

The look Miranza gave him spoke volumes. She had long ago mastered the _Theron, don't be an idiot_ look. “Theron, considering how our _other_ run-ins with you have gone, do you think our superiors are going to care? They’re going to make the connection whether it exists or not. They’re going to assume we’re responsible for the leak. We’re already walking on incredibly thin ice. If they decide we can’t keep our pet Republic spy under control, then …”

“Your pet _what?!”_

She gestured angrily. “What do you think we tell them, Theron? That we just let you go because you’re such a nice guy? We’ve been telling Intelligence that we’re grooming you as an asset, that we think we can bring you in to the Empire eventually. But that has its fucking limits, Theron, and if you go tearing off investigating something our superiors _clearly_ don’t want you – or us – anywhere near, then you’re a loose cannon and by extension so are we!”

Miranza stood up, too agitated to continue sitting, and began pacing the room.

“You’ve already seen what they’re willing to do to bring me in line,” she said, barely restrained anger in her voice. “You know about the Castellan restraints” – he winced at that; he didn’t think he’d ever stop wincing when the brainwashing technique was mentioned – “you know about my fucking brand, you …” She trailed off, looking down at the floor, then glanced at her husband. Theron found himself unable to read the expression on her face, but whatever it was, it caused Vector to begin shaking his head rapidly.

“No,” the Joiner said firmly. “He doesn’t need to know.”

“Show him,” Miranza said. _“Show him,_ Vector.”

An expression of helpless anger on his face – anger that, so far as Theron could tell, was being directed at Miranza – Vector stood, turning away from them. For a moment he just stood like that, facing away, his shoulders set in a tense, stiff line. Then, his hands shaking with fury, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it over his head with a single vicious jerk.

Theron’s first thought, upon seeing Vector’s exposed back, was that the Joiner had been in some sort of accident – a speeder crash, perhaps, although why he should have been riding shirtless was a bit beyond Theron at this point. Then, slowly and gradually, the SIS agent realized what he was looking at. The scars on Vector’s back weren’t the result of road rash. He hadn’t been in an accident.

He’d been whipped.

Black fury crashed down over Theron at the sight of the extensive scarring across Vector’s lean, well-muscled back. What had been done to Miranza had been bad enough, but that at least had been a single injuring act: white-hot metal pressed once against delicate skin, burning the brand into her. Over and done with. Painful, to be certain, but relatively quick. What had been done to Vector, on the other hand …

Silvery pale lines crisscrossed the smooth planes of the Joiner’s back. In places the scars were almost uniform, as if someone had tried to inscribe a pattern on his skin and had used methodical precision to do so. (Theron didn't want to think about what kind of person could so deliberately harm another being like this.) In other places there was less meticulousness, and Theron could see deeper gouges where Vector had been struck repeatedly, the whip cutting deeper into skin and even the muscles underneath. The scar tissue was white and shiny, the wounds having been carefully tended, but no attempt had been made at covering the damage up. Theron knew that Intelligence assets typically had all scars (and piercings and tattoos) removed in order to eliminate identifying marks, but as with Miranza the evidence of Vector’s punishment – for surely that’s what this had been – was left as a humiliating reminder of their transgressions.

Miranza’s branding had been quick. For whatever reason Vector had been made to suffer; whoever had done this to him had taken their time.

Before Theron could say anything – although at the moment he was struggling to make a sound more coherent than enraged screaming – Miranza let out a choked-off sob and disappeared into the ‘fresher, slamming the door behind her. Vector’s shoulders slumped, his head turned to follow his wife, and he gave a long, shuddering sigh.

“Whatever you intend to say, Theron,” the Joiner said quietly, still looking towards the closed door, _“don’t.”_

Theron finally found his voice. “I was going to say I’m sorry. I know this happened to you because of me.”

“No.” Vector turned around again, facing Theron, and the SIS agent saw for the first time that the older scars on the Joiner's torso – the ones he had been familiar with from their previous interactions – were all gone. Someone had gone to considerable effort to ensure that the marks from the whipping would stand out.

Vector sighed again, sinking down into the chair, still holding his rumpled shirt in one hand.

“No,” he said again, sounding more tired than anything else. “This happened to us because we failed to serve the Empire. None of this is your fault, Theron. We knew the risks of the choices we made, and we made them anyway.”

“You didn’t know they were going to do this,” Theron argued, feeling sick.

Vector snorted derisively, waving Theron’s argument off with one hand. “Believe us, we have seen much worse. This is preferable to execution or imprisonment.”

Theron looked towards the closed ‘fresher door, behind which Miranza continued to hide – or break down. He couldn’t hear anything from within that small enclosed space and he had no way of knowing exactly what she was doing in there, other than blaming herself, probably. He didn't know how he felt about her decision to have Vector show him his scars, but he could understand why Vector had been reluctant, why her insistence had made him upset. It was strange to see the Joiner expressing embarrassment or shame, and that, as much as the evidence of the wounds themselves, filled Theron with white-hot anger. Vector was calm, elegant, unflappable: whoever had done this to him had taken some of that from him.

“She was branded,” Theron said softly, the words feeling foreign on his tongue, “but you were whipped. Why?”

Something dark passed across Vector’s face, an expression of mingled fury and disgust that seemed out of place on the Joiner’s handsome, angular features. He rolled his shirt up into a ball and tossed it aside with harsh, stilted motions.

“To remind her that she is property of the Empire,” he said flatly, speaking with careful precision, “and that _we_ are the easiest thing they can use to hurt her.” His lips quirked into a bitter semblance of a smile. “Such an unpleasant realization, that we are each other’s weaknesses.”

“And strengths.”

Vector nodded, closing his eyes. “Yes. That, too.”

Theron moved, slowly walking around until he stood behind Vector. The Joiner sat hunched over, his back exposed, and Theron had to run through several of Master Zho’s meditation exercises in order to get his thoughts and emotions under control. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hit something, to lash out at the people who had hurt his … friends … his …

_Kriff._

“You need to leave,” he said finally. “You need to get the fuck away from the Empire.”

“We can’t, Theron,” Vector replied. He sounded defeated. “We … It’s … it’s complicated.”

“No,” Theron said, his gaze fixed on Vector’s scars. “It’s not. It’s really fucking not.”

The Joiner moved slightly, turning his head back towards the ‘fresher door. “We _can’t,_ Theron. She … Miranza, she – she physically cannot leave. She can’t even contemplate it. We talk about it and ... she shuts down. It’s not about loyalty at this point, Theron. We _are_ loyal to the Empire, but not to … not to the people who do _this. This_ isn’t the Empire, not to us. But Miranza … it’s more than loyalty.”

Theron felt a chill ripple through him. “Are you saying she’s brainwashed? She can’t be. She said – she told me that once the Castellan restraints were broken, she – I – _we_ couldn’t be brainwashed again.”

Before the fear could escalate within him – Theron could feel the panic sweeping in at the very notion that he might not be as free as he had thought himself – Vector shook his head, glancing up at him.

“Perhaps it is not so much a question of being brainwashed again, but whether or not our beloved was _always_ brainwashed.” Vector raised a hand to his face as if preparing to cover a cough, a nervous gesture Theron was long familiar with. “Or perhaps ‘brainwashing’ is not the correct term for it. Perhaps instead one might say she was indoctrinated, from a very – _very_ – young age. We’ve no way of knowing what Intelligence had done to her when she was a child. It is entirely possible that we have _never_ known her not to be under some form of conditioning or control.”

_The facility._ Theron didn’t know what the place was called; Miranza only ever called it ‘the facility,’ and she hadn’t gone into much detail about it. He knew she was an orphan – although the circumstances behind that were vague – and that she had been raised alongside other children in an Imperial Intelligence training facility. What Vector was suggesting was certainly possible. If Miranza had been raised from infancy to be loyal to the Empire that would be an exceedingly difficult loyalty to break. And it was already a proven fact that the Empire had access to a variety of different methods of mind control. The Castellan restraints didn’t need to be the only things keeping her in check.

“She cannot leave,” Vector said, voice ragged. “And we cannot leave without her.”

Theron’s mind was racing with the possibilities and implications of this revelation. It seemed clear to him that if Miranza was indeed under some kind of control, it couldn’t be one hundred percent restrictive or she would never have been able to refuse her superiors’ orders. She would have handed him over to the Dark Council the first time they had commanded it, and he would now be in Imperial custody, either in prison being interrogated or worse. She certainly wouldn’t have arranged to let him escape twice, nor would she have been willing to give him intel on Admiral Staxon. And that whole situation back at the Imperial archive, when she and Vector had taken down the security team that had pinned Theron and Ryshan? There was no way she could have done any of that, not if she was under complete control. So perhaps Miranza’s only conditioning – or indoctrination, if that’s what Vector wanted to call it – was in her loyalty to the Empire. Her patriotism. She couldn’t leave, and that was bad, obviously, but Theron thought he could work around this somehow. He just needed time to think.

He didn’t realize he had started tracing his fingers over the scars on Vector’s back until he felt the Joiner stiffen and then relax under his touch. Theron almost pulled his hand away, embarrassed by his own presumption, but he stopped himself as some of the tension left Vector’s shoulders. Theron had never been one for casual physical contact; it didn't come naturally to him, and it was difficult for him to demonstrate physical affection. (Sex, sex was easy - usually. You didn't have to feel connected to someone to have sex, it was just a question of hormones and impulses.) Vector, however, was far more comfortable with both demonstrating affection and being physical. It was partly a result of his Joiner nature - Killiks used physical contact to communicate - but Theron suspected the other man had always been far more affectionate. Although Theron's knowledge of Vector's past was limited, he had a feeling the Joiner had had a far more typical childhood than Theron or Miranza had had, and he was certainly more comfortable establishing connections and ties. (Of course, Vector hadn't learned until far too late how dangerous love could be. By then he was already _in_ love. He didn't have Miranza's or Theron's past experiences to warn him away. He loved, openly and freely, and it was something Theron admired about the man - how deeply he loved, how deeply he _cared_ , even when it hurt, even when it threatened his life.)

Theron had kind of forgotten what it was like, to be close to someone, to be able to touch them without being afraid they'd mock you for it or hurt you - or abandon you.

“Does it hurt?” he asked quietly, continuing to outline the scars with the tips of his fingers, shoving away his own insecurities.

“No,” Vector replied. His voice was soft, with a dreamlike quality to it. “Not anymore. It feels tight sometimes, as if the skin is stretched, and when the weather is particularly bad our muscles ache, but no, in general it no longer hurts us. It’s just scar tissue.”

Theron’s hands moved over Vector’s back as he sought to reacquaint himself. The scars were bad – no, scratch that, the scars were _horrifying_ – but Theron could see the other man’s strength and resolution in the way he held himself, and he suspected that Vector had been right. This punishment hadn’t been intended for Vector.

After a moment Vector brought his hand up, catching hold of Theron’s as it rested on his shoulder. With a gentle tug he pulled Theron around from behind the chair, drawing him in until the SIS agent was standing in front of him, facing him. He released Theron, tilting his head upwards so they could look each other in the eye. Something had shifted in Vector's face, some of the hurt and anger melting away under the gentle affection of Theron's touch.

“Take your shirt off,” Vector ordered, still quiet. “We want to see what was done to you.”

Theron hesitated briefly before grabbing his shirt and pulling it over his head, tossing the wadded-up fabric aside much as Vector had done earlier. The Joiner’s head lowered, and while it was difficult to follow the movement of his eyes Theron sensed that Vector was looking at the fresh marks on his midsection: the mostly-healed scar over his ribs and the lower, uglier scarring on his gut. Something hard and angry passed over Vector’s face, and then it cleared again and he leaned forward and brushed his lips gently over the wound.

“We’re sorry this happened to you,” he said, mouth warm against Theron’s skin.

“Don’t be,” Theron replied, Vector’s own earlier words immediately springing to mind. “None of this is your fault.”

Vector drew back, looking up at Theron. His lips twitched, the faint smile much more genuine and heartfelt than before. His hands found Theron’s, fingers twining together, thumbs rubbing lightly over the pulse in Theron's wrists. The look on his face made Theron's heartbeat speed up.

“If we’re going to be damned for loving a pair of spies,” Vector said softly, drawing Theron down to him, “we may as well enjoy the fall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. *ducks* I've been holding off on sharing what Vector's punishment was, but I think you all knew it wasn't rainbows and kittens.
> 
> I'd also intended for the revelations regarding Miranza to come later in the story, but it kind of flowed organically from the very obvious "why the fuck are you two idiots _not_ leaving the Empire?!?" question that kind of needed to be asked at this point.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had titles for my various chapters, this one would be "Amateur Therapy Hour."

Theron had about half a heartbeat to process what Vector had said – _Did he just say he loved me?_ – before the Joiner’s lips pressed against his and it was suddenly much, much harder for him to think clearly.

Vector pulled Theron down onto his lap, releasing his hands so he could coil his arms around the SIS agent’s back and draw him in close. His lips were warm, his mouth tasting of the spices and honey in the tea, the flavour already so uniquely Vector that it left Theron gasping at the sudden sense of homecoming. It had been six long, long months since Theron had last been with Vector, and the longing that filled him was so intense it was almost painful.

“Oh. Um … ah.” Miranza’s voice, coming from the now-open ‘fresher door, was a mixture of hesitancy and doubt, and Theron reluctantly pulled away from Vector to look over at her. She had made an effort to clean herself up, but he could see that she had been crying: her eyes were red-rimmed and there were tear-tracks on her cheeks. Her eyes darted from the two of them towards the nearby bedroom, as if she wasn’t sure whether it would be safer for her to retreat in there or wait for them to head that way on their own and leave her the sitting area. “I’ll just … go … um …”

The combination of nervousness in her voice and the sight of her tear-stained face put Theron's libido in check, and he wanted nothing more than to calm and reassure her that she wasn't intruding on anything.

“Nonsense, beloved,” Vector replied, freeing up one of his hands so that he could hold it out to her. Whatever anger he’d been nursing towards her for demanding he reveal his scars to Theron, he appeared to be over it, and he seemed to share Theron's desire to try and _fix_ all of this. “Come here, darling.”

Still uncertain, Miranza left the relative safety of the refresher and came to stand beside Vector’s chair, accepting her husband’s hand. Rather than pull her down with him as he had done with Theron, Vector brought her hand to his mouth, running his lips over her fingers, then gently nudged Theron to stand up again. The Joiner then stood himself and, catching both of them by the hand, led them into the bedroom with him. Theron let himself be dragged, but Miranza was slower to follow, her steps hesitant. By the look on her face Theron guessed that while Vector was over his earlier anger, she was still upset, and he wondered how much blame she placed on herself for her husband’s scars.

_Fuck this,_ Theron thought, rekindling his desire to figure out a way to break whatever control her superiors had over Miranza and get the two of them free of the Empire – away from the kind of people who would use them against each other. Vector and Miranza had spent the better part of the past year saving him; it was time he returned the favour.

“You don’t have to … I mean, I’m not …” She was still so painfully hesitant, glancing from Vector to Theron and back again, almost as though she expected one or both of them to send her away.

Theron took her free hand, the one Vector wasn’t holding, in his own and used it to pull her towards him.

_“You_ don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” he said gently, “but, sweetheart, we want you, if you do.” The endearment felt strange on his tongue; Theron wasn’t accustomed to calling people by anything other than their names, and he’d certainly never been in any relationship long enough for him to develop an affectionate nickname for his partner. But it seemed to come so easily for Vector and, honestly, the three of them had already been tearing the galaxy apart for each other – surely calling Miranza ‘sweetheart’ should be easier than anything Theron had already done?

Whether Miranza recognized the tremendous step Theron had just taken or if it was simply the gentle tone of his voice – not to mention Vector’s tender coaxing – she seemed to melt against the two of them, and within seconds they were all cuddled up together on the king-sized bed.

Theron didn’t know how they did it, but somehow whenever he was with Vector and Miranza together the two of them managed to make it so that _he_ was the focus of their attention without ever seeming to lose interest in each other. Even this, which had started out being just him and Vector, and then had turned into him and Vector focusing on Miranza, was now somehow Theron cuddled in the middle of the bed with Vector on one side and Miranza on the other. Not that he had any complaints.

“This doesn’t have to go anywhere,” Vector was saying, mouth roaming along Theron’s neck and shoulder, his words directed at both of them. “We are all of us feeling overwrought and vulnerable right now, and it is enough to simply express affection.”

Miranza nuzzled in against Theron, sighing happily into his shoulder. She lifted her head slightly, giving her husband a look that Theron found difficult to read although he thought perhaps she seemed somewhat exhausted - emotionally, at least, if not necessarily physically. He wondered how much of her time in the 'fresher had been spent crying, and how long that hurt had been pent up. “You’re both so beautiful. I’m just happy watching you.”

Theron felt his cheeks redden, both at the compliment and at what she was suggesting. He didn’t normally consider himself to be an exhibitionist, but there was something different about being intimate with one person – one person he cared about – while the other watched. Vector, pushing himself up onto his elbow, caught sight of Theron’s embarrassment and let out a low, husky chuckle that set a fire burning deep below Theron’s belly.

“We needn’t do anything at all, love,” he said to Theron, bending to nip Theron’s ear. The nickname, following so closely on the heels of Vector's earlier words, sent Theron spinning in confusion. They had rapidly embarked into territory that was painfully unfamiliar for him, territory that he had no clue how to navigate. A childhood spent learning the values of emotional detachment and temperance did not prepare one for dealing with professions of love and affection.

“No, I’m just …” Theron cleared his throat and tried again. What the kriff was it about these two that always reduced him to feeling like an awkward teenager? “I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed.”

“By what?” Miranza asked, arching one golden blonde eyebrow.

He knew without needing to see himself in a mirror that his blushing had intensified, and he wished like crazy that he wasn’t lying on his back so that he could find some way to bury his head under a pillow or something. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable – not precisely, anyway – but that he didn’t know how to answer Miranza’s question without ruining the moment entirely, and this was a moment he very much wanted to savour. Not so much the sexual aspect of it – although who was Theron kidding? the prospect of sex with Vector and Miranza was great – but what had led up to it, the things Vector kept saying.

Because it was really starting to sound like Vector was saying he loved Theron, and that … that was something Theron didn’t know how to process.

Not because Theron was opposed to love or because he didn’t believe the Joiner was capable of it. He knew how much Vector loved Miranza. But ‘love’ wasn’t a concept Theron had a lot of experience with outside of the abstract. If anything, most of his life had been structured around the idea that connections and relationships were to be avoided at all costs, because they would lead to him being compromised and incapable of doing what was necessary for the greater good. Master Zho had raised him with the expectation that Theron would one day become a Jedi, and consequently Theron had been taught to eschew close connections. He couldn’t remember ever hearing his guardian tell express love or even absent-minded affection toward Theron – although Theron was confident Master Zho _had_ cared for him, he’d never really said it in so many words. And Master Zho had been Theron’s closest relationship, his only _real_ , consistent relationship in his entire life - and in the end, even Master Zho had chosen to walk away from him. If Theron struggled to understand the concept of familial love – and he did, boy did he ever – then romantic love, the kind of love that Vector and Miranza had for each other, that they seemed to be offering to him, was surely well beyond his grasp.

And if he struggled to even think about it, then _talking_ about it – much less with the people it involved – was as insurmountable as counting the grains of sand on Tatooine.

“I don’t know how to talk about this,” Theron finally admitted grugingly, closing his eyes and willing the bed to swallow him whole. Talking about it would ruin everything, surely?

Miranza bumped her nose against his shoulder. “Why do I get the feeling this has nothing to do with sex?”

“Theron, love,” Vector began, but Theron cut him off with an exaggerated groan.

“It’s _that,”_ he said, covering his face with his hand. “You keep saying it. Like it’s just so easy for you, like it’s the most natural thing in the galaxy, like … like …” Stars, he was such a kriffing idiot. He should just shut his mouth and enjoy the ride, and instead, no, he had to start babbling like a moron … Theron squeezed the bridge of his nose, pinching his eyes shut. “Somebody please just shoot me now. Put me out of all of our miseries. _Please.”_

Vector stiffened against him, pulling away slightly, and Theron knew he’d absolutely gone and ruined the moment in its entirety. He opened his eyes reluctantly, afraid to see the look on Vector’s face, but to Theron’s surprise the Joiner simply looked … sad. Vector sighed, leaning in and kissing Theron lightly on the mouth before pulling back again and sitting up cross-legged on the bed.

“Come here, _love,”_ Vector said with careful emphasis, guiding Theron to rest his head in the Joiner’s lap. Miranza moved enough to let the two men get comfortable, then shifted until she was once again curled up against Theron’s side, her fingers running through the light dusting of hair on his chest. Vector ran his hands over Theron's head, carding his fingers through Theron’s hair, shaking his head slowly.

“We should very much like to have a few choice words with your mother,” the Joiner murmured, sounding frustrated. “Your mother, and the entire Jedi Order, and quite possibly literally every other person who’s ever made the ridiculous decision to walk away from you. Is it really so difficult to believe that we could care for you, Theron? After everything we’ve done, everything that’s happened, do you honestly believe we don’t love you?”

Miranza shifted again, pulling Theron’s hand away from his face. She drew his hand downwards, to her hip, until his fingertips were lightly brushing over the brand that was hidden beneath the soft cloth of her trousers. He felt a pang of guilt at the knowledge that she had suffered that branding because of her decision not to betray him - and then that guilt shattered into something else, a strange sort of wondering and bewilderment at the realization that she had made that choice because she cared for him. She and Vector had suffered, willingly, because of _him_ , because they wanted to keep him safe. Because they loved him. And she wasn't reminding him of her scars because she wanted him to feel guilty, but rather because she wanted him to understand how important he was to both of them.

“It _is_ easier for him to say it,” she said quietly, smiling into his shoulder. “But trust me, we _do_ love you, Theron. Both of us.”

Theron let his hand curl over her hip, and although he wasn’t able to feel the scar beneath his palm it still seemed to him as if the brand burned him. He didn’t want to be responsible for this, for her pain, for Vector’s. He didn’t want to remember Miranza’s face when Vector showed him his back, or how uncomfortable she’d been when he first saw the scar on her hip. He didn’t want to be the reason for them to be hurt.

Because … shit, he was pretty sure he loved them, too.

O o O o O

Several hours later the three of them were still curled up in bed together, having fallen asleep after crawling under the covers for nothing more than simple, comforting cuddles. Theron came awake with a jolt, choking back a cry of terror at the last second as he became aware of his surroundings. Miranza, still twined around his body like some kind of clinging vine, murmured sleepily at him, half-waking in response to his nightmare. Vector didn’t wake at all, but the arm he’d flung casually over Theron’s chest tightened slightly, and it took Theron a moment to realize that even in sleep the Joiner was attempting to put himself between his loved ones and any perceived dangers.

Theron brushed a hand over Miranza’s side, feeling her settle back into slumber. His heart was still pounding, the adrenaline from his nightmare still coursing through his body, and as much as he wanted to remain cuddled up between the two of them he didn’t think he was going to be able to fall back to sleep. It took some effort, but he was able to free himself from the two Imperials, wriggling down towards the end of the bed like some kind of overly large and awkward snake.

In a way this reminded him of their time together on Manaan – the last time they’d slept together, and the first time all three of them had had sex. There had been cuddling and snuggling after that, too, and he thought maybe he'd woken up from a nightmare then, as well. He wished he could say that his nightmares had become more infrequent since that night, but in reality they’d only taken on a different form. It used to be that he dreamt of Samar and all the horrible things that sadistic bastard had done to him, or made him do, but now Theron’s latest nightmare involved Vector, the scars on the Joiner’s back … and Theron’s hand holding the whip.

He didn’t need Doctor Zywes to interpret _that_ particular dream.

Cautious in the dark, Theron made his way back to the sitting area and sat down on the couch, letting his legs stretch out across the cushions. All three of them had stripped down to bare skin before going to bed – there was something incredibly comforting about skin to skin contact, even if the intent wasn’t _purely_ sexual – and there was a part of him that expected a scolding (from who, he couldn’t have said) for sprawling naked on a strange couch. Not that he thought Vector and Miranza would mind, or that they were the kind of people whose slovenly housekeeping made such an activity inadvisable. No, there was just something inherently naughty about plunking his naked ass on someone else’s furniture.

“Are you all right?” Vector’s voice was a soft rumble in the darkness as the Joiner came and stood beside the couch. Theron turned and set his feet on the floor, making room for the other man. Vector sank down onto the couch next to him.

“Yeah. Just a nightmare.” Theron did not want to go into details about this most recent bad dream.

Fortunately Vector didn’t push. Instead he simply nodded, lapsing into companionable silence.

“What happens after this?” Theron asked, staring straight ahead at the wall across from him, his words an unconscious echo of what he'd asked on Manaan six months ago. Vector turned, puzzled, and he clarified, “Tomorrow, when the three of us get up, what happens then?”

“Well,” Vector said, tone thoughtful, “we expect we shall have breakfast, and then … we presume you’ll continue your investigation.”

Theron sucked in a breath, startled by Vector’s calm assumption. “You’re not going to try to stop me?”

“No.” Vector’s head tilted upward, as if he was studying the ceiling. “We were thinking we might perhaps assist you, instead. We don’t think you’ll give up, regardless of the potential consequences” – Theron flushed, knowing those consequences might very well include Vector and Miranza being imprisoned or killed over this, and yet knowing that Vector was right, he didn’t intend to give up – “and you raised a valid point. If Minister Beniko is being kept out of this in spite of her position, it might be of some benefit to us to gather information ourselves, which we can bring back to her. As we said, if we’re going to be damned, we might as well enjoy the fall.”

“I thought that just meant you’d have fun fucking me.” Normally the word fell easily off Theron’s tongue, but for some reason he winced as he said it, as though he was somehow tarnishing whatever he and Vector had.

Vector, however, seemed to find it amusing, and he chuckled. “Yes, that too. But in this instance … if you’re going to continue your investigation, and nothing we do or say can convince you to stop – and knowing, as we do, that there _are_ limits to what we are willing to do to try to stop you – then the consequences to us remain the same whether we assist you or not. If we are to be punished regardless of our actual degree of involvement, then why not be fully involved? And by that involvement we stand a better chance of keeping you alive.”

“Because I’m dong such a bang-up job of that myself?”

Vector chuckled again. “Yes, precisely. You’ve all the self-preservation of a kalak.” He sobered, leaning in closer to Theron, lowering his voice. “We are also beginning to suspect that whatever you’re investigating may have something to do with Miranza. We are not certain how, but you recall the Chiss who attacked you?”

“Yeah.” Theron resisted the urge to rub his back; it’d taken weeks for the cut on his hip to heal, and it had mostly been the time he’d spent in the kolto tank – to speed up the treatment of his stab wound – that had finally made the mark go away. “He seemed to know her.”

“Somewhat. Miranza believes he may have been raised in the same facility as her, possibly before her time there. It might just be a coincidence, but …”

“But there aren’t any coincidences in espionage,” Theron finished for him, nodding.

“Precisely.”

The two lapsed into silence again, Theron thinking over what Vector had said. It could just be a coincidence that Miranza had run into someone who might have been raised at the same Imperial Intelligence training facility that had taken her in. After all, the entire purpose of the facility – so far as Theron could tell – was to educate (and possibly indoctrinate) potential Intelligence recruits, and so it stood to reason that from time to time Miranza would come across other people she had known as a child. While it was almost certain that not all of the children had grown up to work for Sith Intelligence (based on what Theron knew of the Empire, he suspected not all of the children had _grown up,_ period), the majority of them had likely followed the career path set out for them, just as Miranza had done. If Miranza had been sent, as an operative of Sith Intelligence, to deal with Admiral Staxon, then it was entirely possible her superiors had elected to send another agent – as backup, or as insurance that the job was done.

Which begged the question: why had that operative been looking for Miranza? Because now that Theron thought about it, while the Chiss had attacked him in the hallway outside the admiral’s suite, when the man showed up later – bursting into the janitor’s closet where they had been hiding out – it had clearly been Miranza he had been coming after. Theron had been a surprise to him: the Chiss had thought he’d already dealt with the SIS agent.

Did all of this have to do with the facility? Or had the Dark Council and Sith Intelligence – or someone working for them – finally decided to take Miranza out of the equation? And if that was the case, then why send her on an assignment on Nar Shaddaa? Why not just … get rid of her?

_What the fuck is going on?_ Theron wondered.

Before he had a chance to worry at the issue a little more, his wrist-communicator – which he’d left jumbled up with the clothes he’d originally worn to the safe house, now discarded on the floor of the ‘fresher after he’d changed – chimed, alerting him to an incoming holo. And given the late hour, Theron could only think of one person who would be trying to get in contact with him.

Sighing, he padded quietly into the ‘fresher, digging around in his clothes until he found the comm. Setting it to voice-only – he didn’t feel like getting dressed and if he was wrong about who was calling, well, there were only so many times you could holo your boss while buck-ass naked and not get slapped with some kind of demotion or cease and desist order – he accepted the call.

_“Where the fuck are you?”_ Sure enough, the voice belonged to Ryshan, and Theron could hear the steady pounding beat of club music in the background. He was immediately grateful for his decision to opt for voice-only; he didn't need to see the pilot's leering, knowing gaze.

“I’m in a secure location, Rysh,” Theron answered, carrying his comm back out to the sitting area. Vector arched an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged in response.

_“Don’t tell me you’re off fucking that hot blonde and her weird –”_ Before Ryshan could finish what was almost certainly going to be an increasingly unflattering description of Vector, Theron hit the disconnect button, cutting the call off. He then immediately set his comm to silent mode on the off chance that Rysh continued calling him, and shoved the wrist-communicator back under his pile of clothing for good measure. He had an answering service; if anyone needed to reach him they could leave a message and he’d get it in the morning. He didn't even know why he'd bothered answering the comm in the first place - it wasn't like he'd expected Ryshan to have anything good or insightful to say.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, dropping back onto the couch beside Vector.

“Don’t be. We’ve heard worse.” Vector was silent for a moment before turning to Theron, a knowing look on his face. “Tell us, though … You and your incredibly rude friend ...?”

Theron groaned. “Yes. Sometimes.”

Vector shook his head. “We _do_ have to question your taste in men. Aside from ourselves, of course. _We_ are delightful.”

“It’s not even … I mean … It’s not …” Theron stammered to a halt, then cleared his throat uncomfortably and tried again. “I don’t even like him. He’s a complete asshole and he makes me feel like shit, and the only reason I keep ending up in bed with him is –” He froze, biting his lip to force himself to shut up.

“Because?” Vector said gently, cocking his head to one side. When Theron didn’t immediately answer the Joiner’s expression hardened, and he moved to get off the couch. “Is that man hurting you, Theron? Has he been forcing himself –”

“No! No, kriff, no!” Theron frantically motioned for Vector to sit again, grateful that the darkened room prevented the other man from seeing his sudden furious blush. Stars, he did _not_ want to be having this discussion ... “No, it’s nothing like that. He’s not hurting me – well, I mean … _fuck,_ this is awkward.”

Sitting back on the couch with deliberate casualness, while still being clearly fully ready to burst into action the moment Theron even _suggested_ Ryshan was taking advantage or behaving inappropriately towards him, Vector folded his arms across his chest and gave Theron a long, assessing look. He licked his lips slowly, then said, almost hesitantly, “You needn’t tell us anything that makes you uncomfortable, Theron, but we are starting to feel rather concerned on your behalf, so some sort of explanation would be appreciated.”

Theron rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, blushing so hard he was starting to feel lightheaded.

“Rysh … likes it rough.” At Vector’s slow nod he continued, “Like, really rough. Like … pretend rape, rough. Which is not generally something that I’m in to, but … after … after what Samar did … it’s not that I’m … I mean, I don’t like it, but …”

“But you are consenting?”

“I … yeah. We kind of … talk about it beforehand, come up with … you know, safe words.”

Vector shrugged slowly. “So it’s a way for you to explore your past experiences in a situation you have greater control over. That’s not unreasonable, Theron. Although even without taking your past into consideration, there’s nothing inherently _wrong_ about enjoying those sorts of fantasies with consenting partners. We like the things we like; provided everyone involved is capable of consent and their needs are being met, we see no need to police or judge others.” He hesitated again, clearly weighing whether or not to continue his train of thought before finally adding, “We suspect, however, that your friend Ryshan is not overly concerned with ensuring _your_ needs are met.”

Flashing back to the night he’d ended up naked and confused in the hallway outside Ryshan’s apartment – and never mind their more recent disastrous hookup – Theron grimaced. “You’ve spent, what, ten minutes in his company and you’ve already figured that out?”

“We’ve been known to be perceptive,” Vector replied with a small smile. His arm came up on the back of the couch and he rested his hand lightly on the nape of Theron’s neck, fingers running through the short dark hair. When he spoke again there was a faintly playful note in his voice. “Perhaps the next time you’re in need of such an outlet you might consider us instead.”

Theron coughed in a vain attempt to hide his surprise. He found it next to impossible to picture Vector – calm, elegant, reserved Vector – doing _any_ of the things Ryshan did to him. While the Joiner was certainly capable of being assertive, it was hard to imagine him behaving with outright aggression, although it did send a delightful shiver of anticipatory pleasure through Theron when he thought of Vector pinning him down or pushing him around. (He hated it when Ryshan restrained him, but the idea of Vector doing the same thing didn't seem nearly so discomforting.) And while he couldn’t conceive of Vector treating him with the same degree of violence and disregard that Ryshan showed him, he had to acknowledge that really, that was the point: what he had been doing with Rysh wasn’t healthy or helpful, no matter how he’d tried to convince himself otherwise. There were safer, saner ways to explore his experiences, ways that didn’t result in him breaking down and calling his therapist in the middle of the night.

“I’ll … uh … I’ll take that under advisement,” Theron said, feeling flustered. “Although I honestly can’t see you being … um … you know … rough.”

Vector’s hand, curled reassuringly around the back of Theron’s neck, squeezed suddenly, his strong fingers holding Theron in place with a grip that the SIS agent wasn’t sure he could break. The Joiner used that grip to pull Theron in close, lips fusing around the shell of Theron’s ear. His teeth tugged lightly on the fleshy lobule, biting down with enough pressure to come just shy of painful, and Theron’s breath caught in his throat as that earlier shiver of pleasure intensified.

“You would be surprised,” the Joiner murmured, breath warm on Theron’s face. He released the agent after giving his neck another tight squeeze, leaning back against the couch with a faint smirk at Theron’s reaction. Vector glanced towards the chronometer on the wall and sighed. “But three in the morning is perhaps not the best time for such explorations, not when we’ve had less than two hours’ sleep and will still be required to function the next day. Besides,” he added thoughtfully, “we would need to discuss things more thoroughly beforehand – comfort zones, hard limits, those sorts of thing.”

Theron nodded dazedly, realizing that was a discussion he had never had with Ryshan – and in fact, one he couldn’t even _imagine_ having with Rysh. He was fairly certain if he brought up the topic of comfort zones Ryshan would immediately find ways to ignore his entirely, and there was almost zero chance the pilot had any concept of limiting himself in any way. One would almost think that falling into bed with an immature, self-absorbed asshole might be unhealthy.

Oblivious to Theron’s thoughts, Vector leaned in again and kissed the agent gently on the lips before standing and holding out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation Theron accepted it and let Vector pull him to his feet.

“It’s late,” the Joiner said, wrapping his arm around Theron’s waist and leading him back towards the bedroom. “Let’s go back to bed, love.”

The warm feeling that settled over Theron at the nickname stayed with him as he fell back to sleep, and for once the remainder of his rest was nightmare-free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I blame Tashlen for the mushy direction this went in, because the latest chapters of _Collateral Damages_ have given me all the feels.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in rating.

Morning found the three of them settled into cozy domesticity, with Theron and Miranza seated at the small table while Vector puttered in the background. The scene reminded Theron of their days at the cabin on Alderaan – they had even remembered his favourite breakfast food, and he scraped the last of his porridge up with his spoon, amazed at the way even the little details stayed with them. Miranza had already finished her breakfast (a disgustingly healthy bowl of fruit slices) and was working at the intel Theron had downloaded back at the archive facility; she sat slightly forward on her chair, allowing him to prop his feet up on the seat behind her. She had thrown on Theron’s shirt upon getting out of bed (technically he supposed the shirt belonged to her and Vector, as it had been among the change of clothes they had provided for him), and every now and again he tugged at the hem with his bare toes, exposing creamy pale skin.

The decision to assist Theron with his investigation seemed to be a joint one, although he had no clue when Miranza and Vector would have had the time to discuss the matter, and it was clear the two Imperials were operating on the ‘in for an inch, in for a mile’ approach because they had committed themselves to working with him in full. Theron had discovered that the data he’d downloaded was heavily encrypted (not a surprise, really, given where he had stolen it from) and while he was an exceptionally skilled slicer he was having as much difficulty with it as he had with the dataspike taken from Admiral Staxon’s room. Miranza – although nowhere near as talented at slicing as Theron – had knowledge of Imperial algorithms, and was using that insight to help him crack the encryption. She wouldn’t show him her work, as that was crossing over the line into betraying Imperial secrets, but she thought she could get him past his roadblock. He wished he’d thought to bring the other dataspike with him for her to tackle that one, too.

Theron suspected that once Miranza finished her end of the decrypting he could work backwards to learn the Imperial codes for himself, but that, too, felt like something of a betrayal to him. It was one thing for them to assist each other in getting the job done, but using that assistance to learn Imperial secrets – especially knowing that leaking those secrets could get her killed – was going too far.

Setting his bowl and spoon back onto the table, Theron rubbed his toes over Miranza’s back again and watched as her husband moved to stand behind her. The Joiner took the datapad out of her right hand, replacing it with a soft rubber ball, and then stuck the datapad in her left hand instead, planting a light kiss on top of her head.

“Stretches,” he reminded her, his hands resting on her shoulders.

Miranza nodded absently, most of her attention focused on the datapad. She squeezed the rubber ball in her hand reflexively as Theron looked on. He had almost forgotten the terrible damage that had been done to her right hand; although he hadn’t seen the extent of her injuries, he was aware that she’d had the skin partially flayed and her fingers crushed, and he remembered seeing shiny scar tissue covering her hand back when they had met up on Manaan. He’d killed the man responsible for hurting her, and his only regrets were that he’d done it too slowly and Miranza hadn’t been the one wielding the knife. Her hand had healed well – remarkably well, in fact – but judging by how well-worn the ball was it looked like the physical therapy was still ongoing. He suspected that whatever had been done to erase her scars didn’t have the ability to repair the underlying damage, and that as normal and healed as her hand looked now, it wasn’t necessarily as perfect beneath the flawless surface.

“There, I think that does it,” she said, handing the datapad back to Theron. For a brief moment her eyes drifted down from his face to his exposed chest – both he and Vector had elected to remain shirtless, although in Theron’s case that decision had been made for him by virtue of Miranza stealing his shirt – and she gave him a slow smile that immediately sent blood racing towards his groin.

“Thanks,” Theron replied, swallowing hard. He shut the datapad off and set it on the table. “I’m kind of feeling a little distracted at the moment, though.”

“Oh, really?” Miranza smirked at him and stood, raising her arms over her head and stretching, the movement pulling her shirt up and demonstrating – as if he hadn’t known already – that she was wearing nothing on underneath.

“You’re a wicked woman, beloved,” Vector said. At some point -- damn, he really _was_ distracted – the Joiner had moved behind Theron, and he bent so that his lips were brushing Theron’s neck, his breath warm as he spoke. “Poor Theron is trying to get work done, and here you are … being distracting.”

 _Yes, poor me,_ Theron thought, feeling anything but poor as Miranza smirked again and walked slowly and purposefully towards the bedroom.

Vector chuckled, a low, sexy sound that made Theron’s heart flipflop inside his chest. The Joiner murmured in Theron’s ear, “Perhaps we ought to take a break?”

As Miranza went and sprawled across the bed and Vector’s teeth closed around Theron’s ear, it was all Theron could do to mutter “Fuck yes” before he lost the capability for coherent speech. Vector released him, chuckling again, and Theron stood up, his eyes on the gorgeous blonde reclining on the bed. He followed Miranza into the bedroom, his gaze locked on her as she made her way up to the headboard and sat, leaning back, Theron’s shirt rucked up around her hips.

There was something inherently sexy about seeing her in his shirt – and for all that Miranza and Vector had provided the change of clothing for Theron, it was clear that the clothes had been bought specifically for him, because the shirt Miranza wore was far too big on her but would have been too short and too wide in the shoulders for Vector. Theron did not have a lot of experience in lovers borrowing his clothes – indeed, he didn’t really have experience with _anyone_ borrowing his clothes; no younger siblings making off with pieces of his wardrobe, no friends asking him to lend them a shirt – and the sight of Miranza wearing something of _his_ made him feel all sorts of complicated things. It was sexy, and in a way it was also kind of possessive, as if she was marking him as hers by claiming his clothing for herself, and he knew her scent would be mingled with his and to a lesser extent Vector’s. It occurred to Theron that he might never get over the different ways the two Imperials affected him.

Theron managed to swagger towards the bed, priding himself on his even, steady step when every part of him wanted to just run and jump onto the bed. When he got to the end of the bed he went onto his hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way, kissing his way up Miranza’s bare legs. Her blue eyes had gone dark and heavy-lidded, her lips parting on a sigh as he gently pushed her legs open to give himself better access. Her skin was soft, smelling faintly of flowers, and a rosy blush was already beginning to spread over her cheeks and down her neck.

“You’re so beautiful,” Miranza purred, her hand brushing over his implants.

Cheeks flushing at the compliment, Theron ducked his head and, bracing himself on one hand, used his other hand to slowly push her shirt upwards. His lips skimmed over her belly, making her shiver, and he tucked her shirt in under her chin, leaving her breasts exposed. He admired them for a moment, noting their tightly-pebbled peaks, then brushed his mouth over one breast and then the other. She let out a gasp as he closed his lips around one hardened nipple, and as she arched under him he let his tongue circle the sensitive nub. He licked in slow, concentric circles, then pulled her nipple into his mouth and sucked, his hand cupping her other breast and his thumb teasing the achingly sensitive peak.

The bed dipped as Vector climbed up behind Theron, and then warm hands were on Theron’s waist, tugging his briefs down over his hips. Theron did an awkward sort of shuffle from one knee to the other to enable Vector to pull his briefs down and then off, and as he continued to lavish kisses on Miranza’s breasts the Joiner focused his attentions on Theron’s exposed ass.

“Same rules as before,” Vector murmured softly, and Theron nodded, remembering the Joiner’s words on Manaan: _“We simply wish to know that if something makes you uncomfortable or could potentially be a trigger for you, you will tell us and we will stop.”_ It was tempting to laugh it off, but between the three of them and all the horrible things that had happened to them on Corellia and Alderaan there were so many potential triggers that sex had become akin to navigating a minefield. And as Theron’s most recent disaster with Ryshan had demonstrated, he couldn’t just pretend everything was fine.

But Vector and Miranza were _not_ Ryshan, and they understood Theron better than anyone else in the galaxy.

“Please don’t stop,” Theron said, knowing Vector wouldn’t be content at just a nod from him. “I promise I’ll speak up.”

Vector made a noise of agreement, his hands resting lightly on Theron’s hips. He gave Theron a gentle nudge forward against Miranza, and the SIS agent needed no further encouragement. He went back to kissing and stroking her breasts, alternating between them before trailing his mouth down over her belly again. He pushed her thighs open, her breathy whimper of need making him gasp against her inner thigh. When he brought his hands to her core he found her wet and quivering, and his finger slid inside her easily, making her writhe. Pulling back – her whimper turned to a needy whine – he bent and kissed the inside of her thigh, then ducked his head and dragged the tip of his tongue across her outer folds. Miranza made a breathy keening sound that quickly turned into a full-throated moan as his tongue deftly probed between her lips, flicking over her clit before delving in deeper.

Suddenly there were warm lips pressing against Theron’s ass, and he moaned into Miranza’s warm, wet core as Vector’s hands – one on each buttock – gently spread him open. He couldn’t stop the instinctive clench of muscles as the tip of Vector’s tongue probed and licked, but he forced himself to relax, and next Vector was adding one finger, then two, loosening him up. Vector’s fingers were slick – with oil or lube, Theron couldn’t tell and didn’t care so long as it meant he wasn’t going to stop – and his other hand was stroking gently, almost idly, over the curve of Theron’s ass.

Face buried between Miranza’s legs, Vector’s long fingers sliding in and out of him, Theron didn’t think he’d ever been so hard in his entire life. He glanced up to gauge Miranza’s reaction and saw that her gaze was fixed on him – on him, and on the things her husband was doing to him, and the expression on her face was … Words like “beautiful” and “radiant” didn’t even begin to cut it. "Exultant," maybe. Like this was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen before - like this was the only thing she _wanted_ to see, _ever_. He understood exactly what she’d meant the night before when she’d said she would be perfectly content to simply watch him and Vector.

Vector’s finger brushed on that sweet spot deep inside and Theron bucked against the bed, grinding himself against the coverlet. He’d lost whatever rhythm he’d set on Miranza; it was impossible to focus on anything beyond Vector’s touch. He was pretty sure he was already close to coming and no one had even laid a finger on his cock.

“Is it still yes?” Vector asked, his voice ragged, his fingers withdrawing.

At this point words were pretty much beyond Theron, but fortunately Vector understood the consent in his muffled groan and frantic, desperate nod.

Vector went slowly at first, his hand on the small of Theron’s back, the other guiding him to his slicked-up entrance. Theron groaned again, pressing his face to the inside of Miranza’s leg, and when Vector started to thrust Theron returned his mouth and fingers to her dripping core, setting a new rhythm to match the one Vector was using on him. Miranza’s hand brushed lightly over Theron’s head before her fingers twisted in his hair, and when he looked up again he saw that she had her other hand clasped to her breast, her fingers teasing and stroking her nipple in roughly the same pattern his tongue was laving over her clit. Vector brought his hand around, urging Theron upwards slightly so that he could curl his fingers around Theron’s cock, and just that small amount of contact was enough to make him gasp and pant as if he’d been running a marathon.

Miranza shattered first, her moans and cries rising to a fever pitch until she was bucking against Theron’s mouth and her fingernails were scraping over his scalp. Vector’s thrusts became erratic and his hand on Theron’s cock seemed suddenly frenzied as he sought to bring them both to their release. And then Theron was coming hard, his shuddering and spasming enough to bring Vector over that edge with him until the Joiner slammed into his welcoming flesh and came with a shout.

Time seemed to stop while the three of them caught their breath: three sweaty, entangled bodies lying in a panting, languid heap.

“Stars, your kriffing _mouth,”_ Miranza sighed at last, running her hand through Theron’s hair with absent-minded affection. “And you call _me_ wicked.”

“Can’t talk,” Theron muttered. He kissed her thigh, feeling her shiver delightedly under him. “Pretty sure I’m dead. Your husband fucking killed me.”

Vector was a long time in responding, but when he did his voice was filled with raw satisfaction. “We live to serve.”

O o O o O

Distractions temporarily dealt with, followed by a shower (alone – as lovely as the safe house was, the ‘fresher wasn’t large enough for the three of them to bathe together) and a change of clothes, Theron resumed his attempts to decrypt the intel he had downloaded from the archive. Vector had tidied up their breakfast dishes and cleaned the small kitchen, and had taken to sitting cross-legged on the floor, his hands resting palms up on his knees as he meditated. Miranza sat beside Theron at the table, working on a crossword puzzle, stylus in her left hand and the rubber ball Vector had handed her earlier back in her right hand, her fingers squeezing rhythmically as she considered the clues before her.

As expected, Miranza’s input and the Imperial algorithms had vastly simplified matters for Theron, and the decryption practically handled itself. It didn’t hurt that good sex and a hot shower had left him feeling relaxed and at ease for the first time in days, and his mind felt free to focus on the problem at hand instead of on the dozens of anxieties and insecurities and fears that had been overwhelming him lately. He really did regret leaving the other dataspike with the SIS back on Coruscant; with Miranza’s help he was confident he could crack it. At least now he felt like he was getting somewhere with this investigation.

Miranza made a small choking sound. Across the room Vector’s eyes flashed open, an expression of alarm on his face, but then her choke turned into a muffled giggle and both he and Theron regarded her with mild suspicion.

“What is so amusing, beloved?” Vector asked, closing his eyes again as he attempted to settle back into his meditative pose.

Biting her lip, Miranza held the datapad out to Theron, the tip of one finger pointing at the clue for the next word on her list. He read it out loud and groaned. _"#32 Down: Clue: Republic war hero and former leader of so-called ‘Havoc Squad.’ (Six letters.)"_

“Are you kidding me?” Theron muttered, rolling his eyes. “Where did you even _find_ that?”

Miranza grinned and filled in the boxes: M-A-L-C-O-M. “Deucalon spaceport giftshop.”

“Naturally.” Theron fell silent, shaking his head. He wasn’t even going to comment on the fact that she’d been to the Republic spaceport; he had faith in her abilities to move around Nar Shaddaa without running into too much trouble, and he knew for a fact she could fake a decent ‘Pub accent. (Better than his Imperial one, that was for certain, but she spent more time undercover than he did so she probably got more practice.)

“He visited me, you know,” he said after a moment, his gaze fixed on his datapad so he wouldn’t have to see either of their expressions. “In the med centre, I mean. After I was … y’know …” He motioned towards his stomach, towards the still-healing wound that was a little tender after his earlier exertions. (Not that he was complaining.) “Stabbed.”

“Oh?” Vector’s voice was filled with faint curiosity. “We take it that was unexpected?”

Theron snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, you could say that. We’re not exactly close.” He knew he wasn’t being entirely fair – Jace had been the one making an effort to get to know Theron, and _he_ had been the one pushing back. It was just strange for him to find he had a father – a living, breathing father who was real and not just an abstract concept, the way he’d been most of Theron’s life – and stranger still to discover that said father wanted a relationship with him. It was difficult for Theron to let Jace into his life, however, because he was certain that at any moment the man would up and disappear. _(Like everyone else.)_ Besides, they’d already missed out on all those traditional father-son moments (at least, those moments that the holovids had convinced Theron were traditional) thanks to Satele’s decision to keep Theron a secret from Jace. It was too late for Jace to teach Theron how to ride his first speeder or play catch with him in the Senate Gardens. The best the two of them could hope for would be a friendship on equal footing - and even that would be a struggle for Theron.

 _You’d think I’d be over this by now,_ Theron thought, then shook his head. He didn’t even know why he’d brought the topic up, except for Miranza’s ridiculous crossword puzzle. The Jace Malcom featured in her puzzle – Republic war hero, former CO of Havoc Squad, Supreme Commander of the Republic Military – that was the man Theron knew. The brief glimpses he’d had of his father in private did little to diminish the image history had created of him, and in all honesty he wasn't even sure he _wanted_ that image changed.

Before his thoughts could run away from him his datapad gave a cheery little chirp, and he realized he had finally managed to unlock the last of the encryptions. He gave a triumphant shout and sat up in his chair, grinning broadly as words and numbers began spilling across the viewscreen.

“It’s … locations?” he said, reading the information that seemed to dance before his eyes. “I think?”

“Show me?” Miranza held out her hand, and Theron slid the datapad over to her. She stared down at the viewscreen, chewing on her lower lip as she considered what she was looking at. “You’re right. These are coordinates.” She pointed at a string of numbers, and he nodded, recognizing galactic coordinates for planets, countries and cities. There were five listings, with what looked like notations beside each one. The notations weren't in Basic; they weren't in any language Theron recognized, and when he raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Miranza she shook her head. She spoke and read more languages than he did - and he was hardly a slouch in that arena - so whatever the notes were written in, it had to be something obscure, or some kind of cipher within a cipher.

“Hmm … Perhaps these are Imperial safe houses of some sort?” Miranza suggested, listing off the locations. “There’s one on Ziost, one on Dromund Kaas, one here on Nar Shaddaa, and one on … I don’t recognize that planet, but it's on the edge of Hutt space. And this one?” She tapped the fifth location, which had the word ‘Acquisitions’ beside it. “This is on Hutta. Well, we can safely investigate the Hutta and Nar Shaddaa locations, and maybe that unfamiliar planet, too. Not sure we want to risk bringing you to Dromund Kaas or Ziost, though …”

It was Theron’s turn to choke on a laugh. “Actually, I’ve been to Ziost before.” At Miranza’s raised eyebrow he shrugged, grinning. “What? Don’t look at me like that. Don’t try to tell me you’ve never sneaked a peak at Coruscant.”

Miranza and Vector exchanged glances; Vector looked decidedly amused, but elected to remain silent.

“Valid point,” Miranza said at last, returning the shrug. “Let’s file that under ‘classified’ and move on, shall we?”

Theron nodded. As much as he would have loved to hear the story behind her trip to Coruscant, he didn’t particularly relish going into details about his time on Ziost. He’d rather not discuss the ‘failed’ assassination attempt on Minister Davidge and the stolen black cipher that had enabled him to gain access to the _Ascendant Spear,_ the superweapon battle cruiser under the control of Darth Karrid. It was definitely an interesting story, but one that’d take too long to tell – and while Miranza and Vector were aware that Theron had been responsible for the deaths of two Dark Council members, it was one thing to have that knowledge as an abstract, and another to hear the details straight from the ronto’s mouth.

Another time, perhaps. He really _did_ want to know about Coruscant.

Grinning, Theron tapped his finger on the viewscreen, over the Nar Shaddaa entry.

“Feel like a little judicious larceny?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this chapter was _killing_ me, and to be honest I'm still not happy with it. :P


	11. Chapter 11

Theron had been prepared to discover that the Nar Shaddaa coordinates led to an Imperial safe house, or some kind of super-secret weapons facility, or another archive – really, _anything_ secretive and slightly shady would have been absolutely no surprise to him. When the three of them arrived to scope out the scene, however, what they found was a long-abandoned storefront in the Duros sector with a burnt-out sign in the window advertising “luxury massages” alongside a crude outline of a Twi’lek dancer.

Two male Duros and a female Rodian were huddled together in front of the store, passing what Theron assumed was some kind of spice back and forth between them. They regarded the three interlopers with vague suspicion, but made no effort to prevent them from approaching the storefront, nor did they try to interact with any of them. Judging from their state of squalor and the meager possessions they had with them, they were most likely homeless refugees who had taken to spice as a way of escaping their sad realities, and the spice had – as spice so often did – led them down a darker path than they had planned. Theron saw Miranza give a small shudder as she observed them handling the intoxicants, and she quickly looked away, her discomfort obvious. Her own addiction had not been anywhere near so bad, but Theron could tell that she could easily picture herself in their place.

Given where they were, Theron had some concerns that the three junkies might actually be there as spies of some sort, but Vector murmured something sadly about the muted tones of their auras and the stench of death that clung to them. All three had the same sunken cheeks and hollow eyes of long-term addicts, and Theron didn’t think they were functional enough to serve as spies. The physical effects of addiction could be faked, but there was no fooling Vector’s Killik-enhanced senses.

“Well, this is … tasteful,” Vector commented dryly, raising one elegant eyebrow at the signage before pointedly turning away and scanning their surroundings. “Certainly doesn’t leave much doubt as to the services provided therein.”

“What are you talking about?” Miranza teased, as she and Theron set to work on slicing the security console to the left of the door. The console was covered in a thick layer of dust, suggesting it had been quite some time since anyone had last tried to enter the building – at least since anyone had tried to use the console; the door itself showed evidence of tampering, but the store did not appear to have been broken into. “Clearly this business caters to Twi’lek dancers with back problems. It’s a remarkably large niche, I’m sure.”

“Oh, clearly,” Vector replied, tone droll. He faced away from the two of them, keeping an eye on their surroundings while they worked at the console.

Theron just chuckled and shook his head, his attention focused on the console. Whatever this place was, he was fairly certain it wasn’t just an abandoned rub-and-tug – there was no way some sleazy ‘massage parlour’ had any need for such elaborate security. As dusty as the console was, it showcased some rather high-end technical specs, and it would have been a challenge for anyone who wasn’t him. Between his slicing skills, the enhancements his implants provided, and Miranza’s assistance, it was only a minor speedbump for him.

“And we’re in,” he said as lights across the console flashed green. A muted ‘click’ sounded from the door, and Miranza did a quick sweep for traps and alarms before gently pushing the door open.

Despite the dusty console Theron had expected that the ‘massage parlour’ would show more evidence of recent use, but the inside of the storefront was every bit as neglected and in disrepair as the outside. The lights came on automatically as the door was opened, revealing a sort of reception area with a desk and two bench seats. The walls had been painted a lurid shade of red and the paint was peeling and crumbling in places, with black mould beginning to grow along the vents near the ceiling. The carpeting was some washed-out green colour, and while once upon a time it had likely been rather plush the years had seen it trampled underfoot; there were dark, sticky spots on the floor that Theron really didn’t want to consider too closely. Posters had been tacked up on the walls; they were all badly faded, but he could tell they had once been pictures of naked (or mostly-naked) women of all sorts of species and races. A heavy layer of dust covered everything, and the air had a stale, mildewy scent to it.

Behind the desk was an older model protocol droid. The fact that it was still intact (if just as dusty as everything else) suggested that the building’s security had kept looters out; it was an outdated model, but it still could have fetched a decent price with the junkers, even if just for scrap metal and electrical components. As the door clicked shut behind them the droid sparked to life, its head lifting with the grating sound of disused servos.

“Good afternoon, masters!” The three of them exchanged glances; the droid’s internal chrono must have been out of whack, as they had staged their break-in for the dark hours of the night. “How might we serve you today? Can we interest you in a two-for-one deal?” Then the droid shifted slightly and seemed to focus in on Miranza. “Welcome home, little sister. Our records indicate it has been six thousand, two hundred and sixty-seven days, fourteen hours, and twenty-two seconds since your last procedure.” The droid glitched, its head dropping onto its chassis and then raising again. “Our rec- rec- _zzzzzpppttt_ … Good after- _ffffthp_ … records indicate …” It continued like this for a few more seconds before the blue lights on its face flared out, and its head lowered onto its chassis again.

Theron hazarded a glance in Miranza’s direction, expecting her to be startled or upset; he remembered her response to the Chiss calling her ‘little sister,’ and now the droid had said the same thing. But instead of looking unhappy, Miranza mostly just seemed bemused.

“Sexist droid,” she commented, arms folded across her chest. “Let me guess: it sees the two of you and assumes you’re customers, whereas it sees me and immediately thinks ‘whore.’ Thanks a lot.”

“Sixty-two hundred days,” Vector mused, head cocked as he did the calculations. “You would have been … what, thirteen or so since your last ‘procedure’ – whatever that is?” Theron blinked at him, impressed by his math skills, and Vector let out a small laugh. “We _did_ have a university education, Theron, although we majored in diplomatic relations rather than the sciences.”

“And minored in …?” Miranza teased.

“Galactic history,” Vector replied promptly.

_Naturally,_ Theron thought, shaking his head.

“Have you even been here before?” he asked Miranza, deliberately focusing on the current situation – although judging by Miranza’s blasé response he suspected he already knew the answer.

“No.” Miranza shook her head, shrugging. “I’ve been on Nar Shaddaa a bunch of times, of course, but I didn’t know this place even existed. Besides, I didn’t leave Dromund Kaas until I was an adult – and it certainly wasn’t to go on a field-trip to the Smuggler’s Moon.” She laughed. “Could you imagine? A field-trip to a massage parlour?”

Theron – who hadn’t exactly had what anyone would consider a ‘traditional’ education – could not imagine a field-trip to a massage parlour, but then he couldn’t imagine any field-trip, period. The way that Vector was smiling and nodding at his wife, however, suggested that it was a pretty common concept. Yet another thing he had missed out on by being raised in secrecy by a Jedi, apparently.

“So, how do you want to handle this, then?” he asked. It bothered him that Miranza didn’t seem troubled by the droid addressing her directly, especially in light of her interaction with – and response to – the Chiss after Staxon’s assassination. He would have thought she’d be upset, but instead she just seemed to find the situation amusing. Still, she didn’t appear to be lying or trying to hide anything, and if she wasn’t bothered by it then it felt silly for him to be upset. She didn’t tend to talk about her childhood very much; Theron suspected that, like his own, it had been difficult enough and unusual enough that spending a lot of time thinking or talking about it was painful. If she'd spent even a moment of that childhood _here_ , however, Theron was confident he would have been able to read it on her face and in her voice, and instead her amusement at the situation seemed genuine. She was a good liar, of course, but he knew her too well to be fooled.

Miranza looked around, considering. In addition to the storefront exit, there were three other doors in the room: one behind the reception desk, and one on either side of the room. The two opposite each other had gaudily-beaded curtains instead of proper doors, while the one behind the desk had a very solid-looking durasteel door with a numeric keypad above the handle. Naturally the locked and coded door was the one that held Theron’s attention; locked doors and boxes always pinged his curiosity. He was also itching to get into the protocol droid’s codes to see if it had any useful intel.

“Split up?” Miranza suggested, grimacing slightly. Historically, splitting up tended not to work terribly well for them, but Theron wasn’t sure how much time they had before someone came to investigate the ‘massage parlour’ – the fact that the location had been secure before their entry suggested that it was patrolled regularly. It seemed a waste of resources for the three of them to stick together.

“What are we hoping to find here?” Vector asked. He was already heading towards one of the beaded curtains, having correctly assumed that Miranza’s suggestion would be accepted.

“I’m honestly not sure,” said Theron. He was torn between tackling the droid and trying to slice the door behind them. “Staxon was involved in slavery, right?” Both Vector and Miranza nodded, matching grim expressions on their faces. “Maybe we’ll find intel that suggests this place was a front for illegal slave trades?”

“Maybe,” Vector said, sounding doubtful. “But slavery is not illegal in the Empire” – his tone of voice suggested that this was something he disagreed with – “so we do not know why he would have felt the need to hide it. Unless … perhaps he was trading in Imperial citizens.”

Miranza moved in behind Theron, beating him to the passcode-warded door. _Droid it is, then,_ he thought.

“Let’s see what we can uncover,” she said, lockpicks and slicing equipment already in hand. “No point in speculating until we’ve had a better look at this place. Split up and regroup back here in thirty?”

“Roger that,” Theron replied absently, already focusing on slicing the droid. Older models were good for one thing: their security was shit compared to the new models, and he didn’t anticipate any difficulty in gaining access to the droid’s coding. There was a quiet clacking sound as Vector pushed through the beaded curtain, and behind Theron Miranza quickly and easily defeated the door security. Within seconds Theron was alone in the reception area, just him and his new friend, the glitched-out protocol droid.

O o O o O

Back in university Vector had a friend and fellow student who’d had a hobby of breaking into and taking pictures of abandoned locations. He’d sold some of his holo-recordings on the side as a way of paying for textbooks and curriculum materials, and Vector had found his work to be quite intriguing. It occurred to Vector now that Samsin would have greatly appreciated this so-called ‘massage parlour,’ at least for its artistic merits.

From what Vector could tell the place had been abandoned for several years, and it seemed as though its owners and employees (if that’s what they were) had left in something of a hurry. Once past the beaded curtain he found himself in a narrow hallway with doors on either side, and each door led into a small, windowless room with a massage table and some rickety shelves. The walls were decorated with what Vector thought were intended to be soothing images: pictures of sandy beaches, fluffy white clouds and flower-filled meadows, faded and in some cases torn or curling up at the corners. The shelves held an assortment of lotions and oils – as well as boxes of synthskin prophylactics, lubricants and other minutiae that he assumed accompanied the sex trade industry. Everything was covered in dust and there were thick cobwebs near the ceiling, but he could see where things had just been abandoned mid-use: a condom wrapper on the floor, some crumpled towels (that might have once been white, but were now a rather dingy shade of yellow) on the table, even some hastily-discarded clothing. He had the sense that he was stepping into a time capsule – albeit an exceedingly sleazy and thoroughly disreputable one.

At the end of the hall there was a left turn that looped back around behind the reception area, and he followed it, wondering if it would connect with the other two doors he had seen. There were more rooms down this hallway, larger rooms with heavy deadbolts on the outside of the doors. Within seconds of his investigation Vector’s stomach sank as the sinister nature of the ‘massage parlour’ came to light.

The larger rooms were cells – or bedrooms, depending on one’s point of view, although Vector had never slept in a bedroom where the lock prevented him from getting _out._ Each room had a narrow bed and a military-style lockbox for personal storage, and that was it so far as furniture went although the rooms had all been personalized. There were posters tacked up on the walls, pictures of musical acts that had been popular close to a decade ago or stills taken from holos that had left theatres before he and Miranza had even met. In several rooms Vector saw pictures of smiling young women – various races and species – plastered above the bed, and a few of the beds had stuffed animals and dolls on them. Clothes were strewn about on the floors or on the beds or half-hanging out of the lockboxes, their colours faded and the fabrics worn. As he walked out of the first room his suspicions were confirmed: there was no deadbolt on the inside, just on the outside; whoever slept in these rooms was kept contained within, and had no means of preventing anyone from entering their personal space.

_Perhaps Theron was right,_ Vector mused, continuing further down the hallway. He’d seen nothing to indicate the hallway connected with the main reception area through the door Miranza was investigating, but as the corridor turned left again he expected that he would find the other beaded-curtain door to take him back to the main area. _Perhaps this_ was _some sort of illegal slaving operation._

Perhaps the slaves had been illegally-traded Imperial – or Republic – citizens. Perhaps this operation had nothing to do with Staxon or the Empire, but was instead somehow connected to the Hutts. Nar Shaddaa was Hutt space, after all. And if they had been using women kidnapped from Imperial or Republic planets, it stood to reason they would be trying to keep the operation under wraps. Hopefully Miranza or Theron would have more information. Vector was just grateful that it seemed the operation had been shut down, although the circumstances of its closure remained a mystery.

The hallway was much like the others: closed doors leading into smaller rooms, although these rooms were slightly larger than any of the ones Vector had seen previously and they were all decorated to some sort of overtly sexual theme. One room looked like some kind of harem, another had a very obvious classroom motif, while a third reminded Vector of the Dark Council offices at the Citadel in Kaas City. The room with a sort of nursery setup was immensely troubling, but he supposed everyone had their fetishes – and just because the room was decorated as if it belonged to a child didn’t mean a child used it, nor did it necessarily mean that the john was the one assuming the role of the ‘parent.’ And once again, there was the sense that these rooms had been abandoned in a hurry: beds unmade, synthskin wrappers (or in one instance, a used synthskin – Vector regretted looking at _that_ too closely) on the floor, other accoutrements left unattended.

As predicted this hallway led to the other beaded curtain, and as Vector returned to the main room he saw Theron still standing in place behind the droid, his hands flying over the console over the reception desk. The droid suddenly jolted 'awake,' lifting its head and turning in Vector’s direction.

“Good evening, master!” it greeted him cheerfully, its chronometer still way off. “Can we … _fffzzzttt_ … -ter! Can we interest y-y- _yoooooooouuuuuuu_ …” Theron keyed something in and the droid froze, one hand raised to wave.

“Sorry about that,” Theron said distractedly, still staring down at the console. “I’ve managed to copy some files over, but the damned thing keeps waking up and talking to me. And making _suggestions_ on things I’d like to try while I’m here. I have no idea what a ‘crusty manka’ is, and you know what? I’m okay with not knowing. Ignorance is bliss.”

“We are equally comfortable with our ignorance in that respect,” Vector agreed vehemently. He considered himself a fairly open-minded man and his sex life was certainly varied – something he owed in large part to his wife, who was the more adventurous one in their relationship – but he couldn’t imagine any of the droid’s suggestions being particularly appealing to him. “This place is …” He shook his head, struggling to find the words to describe how incredibly distasteful and unsettling he found their surroundings.

“I know _exactly_ what you mean,” Theron replied, after Vector trailed off into silence. “I’m almost afraid to break the encryption on these files. It can’t be anything good.” He looked up from the console, giving Vector a weary smile. “Find anything interesting?”

“Besides a rather intense desire to bathe ourselves in bleach?” Vector said, coming to stand in front of the desk so he could watch Theron work. Miranza treated slicing as something perfunctory: a job to be completed in the fastest, most efficient way possible. With Theron it was more of an art form, and it was fascinating the way his fingers flew across the console and his eyes seemed to glaze over as his implants fed the intel directly into his mind. Vector sighed, then continued, “It is as we expected: this is – or rather, _was_ a brothel, and we suspect its … employees … were not here voluntarily. This is not …” He paused, his usual facility with words failing him again. “This place is joyless and cold, and we believe nothing good has ever happened here.”

Theron looked up, hazel eyes shining with sympathy. “Yeah. That’s my impression, too.”

It occurred to Vector then that this place and the idea of it might be more troubling to Theron than it was to him, and _he_ was more than troubled enough. But Theron, having been a victim of sexual slavery himself, might be especially unsettled by it. Theron and Miranza both, in fact. Vector made a mental note to follow up with both of them once they were well away from there. He wasn’t about to have their recoveries threatened, no matter how vitally important this intelligence might prove to be.

Just as Theron looked about to say something more, the door behind him opened and Miranza stepped out, a stack of dusty datapads under one arm. She dumped the datapads on the reception desk and wiped her grimy hands off on her pants, grimacing at the dark streaks they left behind.

“This place is disgusting,” she said. Vector could not have agreed more.

“I’m just about done here,” Theron said, just as the droid suddenly lurched back to life again.

The droid finished its wave and fixed its glowing gaze on Vector. “Good morning, master! Can we interest you in a Corellian sunrise?”

“I don’t know if that’s one of those fancy umbrella drinks or a sex act,” Theron muttered under his breath. Miranza snickered, and the droid turned to face her.

“Welcome home, little sister!” it intoned. “Our records indicate – rec- rec- rec- rec- _orrrrrrrrdsssss_ indicate it has been thirteen minutes – _fffffzzzzztttt_ – fourteen – teen – _teeeeeeeen_ –” It shorted out again, its arm falling along its side with a dull clank of metal on metal.

Vector was about to comment on the oddity of the droid’s programmed response when Theron suddenly swore loudly and began frantically hammering keys on the console. Just as Vector opened his mouth to ask what the problem was the droid lifted its head again, its eyes flashing red - not blue - and turned to Theron.

“Automatic defenses engaged,” it said, as metallic bands sprouted forth from the console and ensnared Theron’s arms at the wrist. Theron cried out, a mixture of surprise and pain, and then there was a blinding flash of light and electricity jolted out over the bands, sparking over Theron’s arms and causing him to jerk in place.

Before Vector had time to react to this unexpected threat, the ceiling opened up overhead and mounted turrets dropped down, spinning around to open fire on the three of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I don't know what a 'crusty manka' is, either, but it probably isn't anything good.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for psychological abuse and extremely dub-con

Theron didn’t know what alarm he’d triggered, but he knew he’d tripped _something_ and he frantically began trying to undo whatever he’d done. Before he had a chance to key in a shutdown sequence the droid next to him came back to life for what felt like the hundredth time – only this time when it turned to face Theron, its eyes were flashing red instead of blue, and he knew this awakening was another part of whatever system he’d accidentally activated. Its next words confirmed that suspicion:

“Automatic defenses engaged.”

Theron didn’t have a chance to pull his hands free of the keyboard before metallic bands launched upwards out of the console, wrapping around his wrists and yanking him forward against the desk, locking him into place. Something inside the bands pierced the backs of Theron’s wrists, gouging into his flesh, and he cried out and tried to break free.

The next thing he knew, electricity was coursing through his body and he tasted blood as his teeth clamped down on his tongue. He jerked and jolted in place, trying desperately to free himself as Vector suddenly leapt up onto the desk in front of him.

For a moment Theron thought Vector was coming to his rescue, but then he realized that the Joiner was instead focused on the twin turrets that had suddenly popped down out of the ceiling above them – admittedly, being blasted full of holes was probably the more urgent concern for them, although the electrified cuffs were definitely high on Theron’s list of problems he wanted dealt with _right fucking now._

Another burst of electricity hit him, and Theron’s vision greyed out, his knees buckling. Looking down with blurry eyes he could see thin trickles of blood streaming down his hands from whatever had pierced his wrists, and the pain of it was almost enough to distract him from the pain of electrocution. The bands were locked tight around his wrists, digging into his skin, and it felt like the needles or stakes or whatever had gouged him had gone all the way through and his mind was filled with horrifying images of what was surely being done to him. He was torn between pain and terror at the very real possibility he was about to lose his hands - or his life.

A sudden flurry of motion beside him, and then Miranza was sinking her vibroknife into the droid’s back, managing to jam the blade in between two sections of metallic plating. Sparks flew and the droid sagged forward abruptly, its head slamming onto the counter in front of Theron. She withdrew the knife and turned to Theron, intent upon freeing him from the cuffs, and paused when she saw the blood on his hands.

He grit his teeth around another jolt, managing to grind out, “S’piercing m-my wri-wrists” before his knees gave way and he found himself pitching forward onto the console. Miranza grabbed him and caught him before he could fall, preventing him from doing further damage to his impaled wrists, and so when the next burst of electricity struck it hit them both. She grunted but didn’t pull away and he realized that she had somehow absorbed the bulk of the electricity – absorbed it, and barely even flinched. She helped him lean against the console, keeping him from falling as she continued to take the brunt of the shocks.

“Don’t move,” she said, wedging the vibroknife in between his wrist and the cuff along one of the seams.

“C-can’t” – another jolt – “h-help it,” he snapped, hissing as the blade pressed too close to his skin. She muttered an apology and tried using the flat of the blade to pry the cuff free. When that didn’t work she let out a stream of curses and dropped the vibroknife onto the desk, grabbing the cuff with both hands and trying to force it apart. She was strong, but she didn't have the hand strength necessary to pry the cuffs apart, and with his wrists impaled efforts to slide the cuffs down over his hands would only result in further injury to him, if it was even possible to pull the cuffs down while the needles were jammed into his skin. Even her efforts to break the cuffs loose caused him pain; he could _feel_ the spikes shifting around, grinding against bone and ripping through flesh, and the sensation made him dizzy and nauseated.

She moved, pushing Theron down face-first onto the counter, pressing forward to cover his head as one of the turrets suddenly exploded above them and bits of shrapnel went flying everywhere. When she straightened again Theron saw a thin trickle of blood over her eye from where she’d been struck and he was about to comment on it – to thank her for shielding him – when another burst of electricity coursed through him. Miranza had moved too far away to absorb it for him and the sudden shock left him staggered, his ears ringing and his vision so blurred he could barely see.

One moment he was hunched over the console, trapped by the metal cuffs that were wrapped around his wrists. The next Theron found himself being dragged between Miranza and Vector, his arms slung over their shoulders, her arm around his waist while Vector supported the bulk of his weight. He had no memory of what happened between those two instances, save that he was suddenly somehow free and they were racing out of the 'massage parlour.' Then things seemed to get really fuzzy again and he lost track of his surroundings – his surroundings, his sense of self, pretty much everything seemed to kind of fade away. It wasn't so much a loss of consciousness as just ... checking out.

When Theron came to he was reclining in a chair in what he was pretty sure was a tattoo parlour judging by the signs and posters hanging on the walls. One wall was completely covered in holos of completed work, and while he was by no means an expert on tattoos to his untrained eye the examples were quite impressive, ranging from traditional Zabrak, Mirialan and Rattataki tribal tattoos to whimsical cartoons to elaborate patterns and designs. There were other chairs similar to the one he was on, the kind of chairs one might find in a dentist’s office, where you could put your feet up and lie back to allow the professional to work. He wasn’t familiar enough with the art of tattooing to recognize any of the equipment (he had always pictured something more appropriate to an Imperial interrogation droid, with lots of needles and probes), but the shop looked clean and orderly, and the fact that it was currently being used as a makeshift med centre didn’t feel all that out of place. Looking down at himself, Theron saw that his wrists were covered in thick white bandages and an IV drip was hooked up to his left arm. He didn’t know what was in the IV but given how warm and fuzzy everything was he had a sneaking suspicion he was on some pretty decent painkillers, and that was just fine by him because he was pretty sure that without the drugs he'd be in a world of hurt right about now.

As he looked around he saw Miranza sitting hunched over on a stool, a burly red-skinned Zabrak – the race typically encountered in Imperial space – perched behind her, clearly in the process of stitching a wound closed on her shoulder. Miranza had stripped out of her armoured jacket and peeled her body glove down enough to expose her upper back, and Theron could see that someone had made an effort to clean away blood from her back and shoulder. The Zabrak noticed Theron watching him and grinned, baring brilliantly white teeth in a surprisingly friendly smile that seemed jarringly out of place amidst his vivid black tattoos.

“Ah, he lives!” the man said cheerfully, returning his focus to Miranza’s shoulder. She tried to peer around at Theron, but couldn’t quite crane her neck enough to see him. “How are you feeling, friend of my friend?”

The Zabrak had a rich, booming voice that seemed to fill the small tattoo parlour, and he spoke with an accent Theron couldn’t quite place – not quite Imperial, but definitely not Republic, either.

“I’m …” Theron paused, considering the question seriously. He hurt, but it felt more akin to the kind of muscle aches he’d had following a particularly severe fever rather than anything of more immediate concern, and he suspected that was the result of the electricity he had been hit with. His wrists were definitely sore and he was pretty sure he’d have bruising from his efforts to break free of the cuffs as well as whatever he’d been stabbed with. All in all, though, he had definitely felt worse, and the fact that he was apparently free and safe and more importantly _still had both of his hands_ made everything seem just hunky-dory. The realization that he had probably never used the phrase 'hunky-dory' before in his life made him seriously upgrade his assessment of the drugs he was on from 'pretty decent' to _'fucking amazing.'_ “I think I’m okay.”

“That is good to hear,” said a warm voice from behind Theron, and there followed a shuffling sound as Vector came into Theron’s line of sight. The Joiner gave him a reassuring smile, his expression tired but relieved. Theron, in turn, was relieved to see that Vector appeared completely uninjured. Vector brushed a hand over Theron’s hair, his thumb tracing the outline of his implant with obvious tenderness and affection. Theron wanted to close his eyes and relax into that caress, but it occurred to him that he should probably have other priorities right now.

“Where …?” Theron was finding it difficult to formulate coherent sentences, and he couldn’t tell if it was the drugs he was on or some lingering effect from being zapped repeatedly by an over-eager ronto prod.

Vector nodded in the Zabrak’s direction. “We are at Dirge’s shop. He will finish patching us up, and then we can be on our way.”

_Dirge?_ Theron thought, but elected not to comment out loud. The man seemed far too cheerful and friendly to be named something like ‘Dirge.’

The Zabrak in question pointed at the IV drip feeding into Theron’s arm. “Stay put until the bag is empty. No telling what kinda nasty poodoo you were exposed to down here.” He finished stitching Miranza’s shoulder and proceeded to slather the wound with kolto gel before covering it with a crisp white bandage. Satisfied with his work, he gave Miranza a grin. “There you go, babe. That’s the last of you. You need anything else before you hit the road? Change of clothes? Bite to eat?”

Miranza shook her head, shrugging her way back into her ruined body glove. “No, but thanks, Dirge. How much do we owe you?”

Dirge waved her off, shaking his head. Theron noticed the man had gold caps on some of his horns, and they glittered in the fluorescent lights of the shop. He wondered if Dirge did his own tattoos, or if he had employees or coworkers to do the work for him.

“You don’t owe me a thing, babe,” the man said. “Just try to stay out of trouble.” He pushed himself up off his stool and came over to Theron, inspecting the IV bolus with orange eyes. After a moment he pronounced it finished and carefully withdrew the needle from the back of Theron’s hand, covering the small pinprick with another bandage. “All right, you’re all good to go.”

Kissing him lightly on the top of his bald head, Miranza gave the Zabrak a small smile. “Thank you, Dirge. Give Zephi my love.”

“Always do, babe.” Dirge grinned again. “Always do.”

Getting up and actually _walking_ in a straight line seemed a bit more complicated than Theron remembered it being, his overtaxed muscles trembling with every step and the lingering effects of the (still fucking amazing) painkillers leaving him groggy and lightheaded. Fortunately neither Vector nor Miranza seemed to be in any particular hurry, and they kept pace with him, one on either side of him in case he stumbled or fell. Dirge’s tattoo parlour was on the edge of the Corellian sector – not all that far from where the ‘massage parlour’ had been – and was one of the more disreputable-looking shops, although it was a definite step up from the Duros sector shops that were nonetheless only about a block or so away. It was as if crossing the line between sectors was taking a step into a different galaxy, and it demonstrated the vast divide between the haves and the have-nots on Nar Shaddaa.

“How long was I out?” he asked, glad to find his speech drastically improved. The fuzziness was receding from his mind, and with that clarity came the sharp, insistent pain from his wrists. He wanted to get someplace secure – their safe house, perhaps – and take the bandages off so that he could see the damage. When the cuffs had clamped down around his wrists he’d had the fleeting panicky thought that he was about to lose his hands, and while that hadn’t been the case there was still the lingering fear that the injuries were worse than was immediately evident.

“We are not certain that you were ever _out_ out,” Vector replied carefully. Now that they were away from the tattoo parlour and walking, Theron could tell that the Joiner was moving stiffly. He didn’t seem badly hurt – and Theron knew Vector’s enhanced physiology enabled him to heal faster than a normal human would – but it was clear he hadn’t walked away from their fight completely unscathed. “You managed to make it to Dirge’s shop largely under your own power, with only minimal assistance from us.”

“Huh.” Theron shook his head. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“You were not particularly lucid, simply mobile.” Vector sounded preoccupied, and his next words – spoken with such careful, casual disinterest that Theron knew his lack of concern was feigned – explained his distraction, as his speech was directed towards his wife: “Beloved, we didn’t get the chance to ask. What did you discover in your investigations?”

If Miranza noticed Vector’s affected nonchalance she gave no indication of it. “Business office, from the looks of it. I snagged some datapads and a couple of ‘spikes for Theron to slice. That, plus whatever Theron got off the droid, will hopefully give us some idea of what the kriff was going on in there.”

Theron and Vector exchanged glances.

“I think we know perfectly well what was ‘going on in there,’ beloved,” Vector replied carefully. Although Theron hadn’t seen the other rooms in the ‘massage parlour,’ he could tell by Vector’s tone of voice that it hadn’t been anything particularly pleasant. The Joiner sounded quite perturbed.

“I mean besides the obvious,” Miranza said, sighing. “There has to be more to it than just some seedy rub-and-tug. Security like what we saw? You don’t stick that in a run of the mill brothel, no matter _where_ you’re getting your prostitutes from.”

“Maybe it had less to do with the … employees, and more to do with the clientele?” Theron suggested. ‘Employees’ was probably not the right word for the women who had been working at the ‘massage parlour,’ especially if Vector was correct in his assessment that the women were there under duress, but it felt disrespectful to refer to them as prostitutes or hookers – even if that’s what they had been. (And honestly, not that there was anything _wrong_ with prostitution, when it was consensual, but Theron's brain was too taxed to come up with a more polite way to phrase it.) He wondered what had happened to them, and hoped that when the business closed (however it closed) they had managed to find security and safety elsewhere. Knowing the galaxy as he did, however, he doubted that was the case. “Maybe the big secret is in who they were catering to? Or,” he added with a sigh, “more likely it’s that those women were kidnapped Republic and Imperial citizens, held against their will, and management didn’t want them escaping.”

“Likely,” said Vector, still sounding distracted. “And the droid, Miranza? When you returned, it addressed you again, it said –”

“I heard it,” Miranza interrupted him. “It was obviously malfunctioning – you heard the way it kept glitching. I told you already, I’ve never been there before. Maybe I just looked like someone who used to work there? Lots of blue-eyed blondes in the galaxy.”

_Yes,_ Theron thought, exchanging another glance with Vector, _but none of them look like you._ The droid’s facial recognition software should have accounted for similar-looking people. Still, she was right: the droid had clearly been on the fritz, and there was no telling how corrupted its framework had become over years of disuse and neglect. But what troubled him was less the fact that the droid had appeared to identify Miranza, and more what it had said in response to that recognition – something about a procedure? And the timing on that procedure had changed; it had gone from saying it had been nearly two decades since her last procedure to less than an hour. If she had stepped out and then come back into the droid’s line of sight again, would that timing have changed? Would it have added or subtracted hours, days, years from its assessment? Or would it only have added a few more minutes, to account for however long she had been out of view? What procedure had it been talking about?

Concerned as he was, however, Theron could tell that Miranza wasn’t lying. She hadn’t been to that storefront before and she genuinely believed the droid had been mistaken. Maybe it had just been a glitch. She didn’t seem to be trying to hide anything from them; she mostly just seemed annoyed by the direction their conversation had taken, as if she was more focused on the intel they had collected than in trying to puzzle out the vagaries of one outmoded protocol droid. Maybe whatever data they had stolen would help to put his mind at rest.

As they approached the taxi stand to catch a speeder back to their safe house, however, Theron had the nagging sense that he and Vector were right to be worried.

O o O o O

Back at the safe house, Theron got first dibs on the shower by virtue of being in the worst shape. Vector suggested that spending some time under hot running water might help with some of the SIS agent’s muscle aches, and while Miranza couldn’t dispute her husband’s wisdom she was itching to get cleaned up. She was covered in dust and blood, and as Dirge had pointed out, there was no telling what disgusting things they’d come into contact with in the brothel. But Vector was right – as he so often was – and so it was Theron who got to clean up first.

Sighing, she made her way into the bedroom, making a quick stop into the seating area to drop off the various datapads and dataspikes they had acquired. By her estimation they’d managed to get out of there with a decent haul, and with any luck she and Theron would be able to decrypt the storage devices and hopefully get to the bottom of all of this. She and Vector had made the choice to involve themselves in Theron’s investigation out of necessity and self-preservation – if they could bring useful intel back to Lana, she might be in a position to shield them from the fallout – but the more they uncovered, the more determined she was to unravel Staxon’s secrets just for the sheer sake of _knowing_ what the dead Admiral had been up to. She was beginning to suspect that she had been sent to murder the man not because he was defecting to the Republic, but because his secrets were something hidden from the Empire as a whole, and somebody higher up in the food chain didn’t want that intel getting out. Not to the Republic, and not to the rest of the Empire. The fact that Lana Beniko, the Minister of Sith Intelligence, was being kept in the dark about this suggested that there was a greater conspiracy going on than just one man’s slaving operation.

Miranza hated secrets – at least the ones that weren’t hers.

She unzipped her armoured jacket, grimacing as she pulled her arms free of the sleeves. Unsurprisingly her back was sore and the rest of her body felt like she’d been trampled under a herd of banthas. She let out a disgruntled sigh at the jagged hole in the back of her jacket; the armour had done what it could to minimize the damage to her, but something had come flying off one of the turrets and struck her with enough force to pierce the flexible plating across her back. It would have been far worse had she not been wearing the jacket. The cut on her forehead had only required a dab of kolto gel and likely wouldn’t even leave a scar (she hoped; she was tired of needing to have work done), but the overall body ache was a result of the electricity Theron had been hit with and her own efforts to shield him from it. Her boots and armour had absorptive shielding tech which had enabled her to take the brunt of the shocks with minimal risk to herself, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. Better her than him, however: Theron’s own armour was nowhere near as good. It never ceased to amaze her how the Republic seemed to send its operatives out with the bare minimum in the way of equipment and training. Theron was certainly an exception in the latter department (granted, she knew for a fact that a significant chunk of _his_ training had not been provided by the SIS), but even he never seemed to have the high-quality gear that was regularly handed out to her as an agent of the Empire.

And they paid him for shit, too.

Miranza cast a longing glance at the bed, thinking of all the things she could be doing there right now instead of standing around hurting; in spite of the two insanely attractive men in the safe house with her, her most pressing desire was sleeping for about a month (although sleeping for a month while cuddled up between those two insanely attractive men would have been a definite plus). She wasn’t going to crawl into bed until after her shower, however, since she certainly didn’t want to get the sheets all grimy.

The ‘fresher door opened, releasing a cloud of steamy air as Theron stepped out into the bedroom. The shower really _had_ worked wonders for him: in addition to being clean (and Miranza could admit to a rather intense spike of jealousy at that) he had a bit more spring in his step and his colour had vastly improved. When they’d first dragged him to Dirge’s tattoo parlour he’d been unnervingly pale and sickly-looking, but now he mostly just looked tired. She felt a bit less resentful about letting him shower first; he'd clearly needed it, and she was glad to see him looking so much better. Even if _she_ was still disgusting.

Theron gave Miranza an exhausted smile and immediately dropped face-first across the bed, sprawling on top of the covers with gleeful abandon. Once again Miranza was tempted to disregard her own desire for cleanliness and join him, but her natural fastidiousness overtook her need for cuddles and rest.

“Is it all right if I go next?” she called to Vector, who had opted to sit and meditate while she and Theron got cleaned up. Of the three of them he was the least injured – no more than some cuts and bruises – and the least filthy. He’d managed to avoid the worst of the dust and muck, thank goodness.

“Of course, beloved,” he replied, as she had expected he would. Smiling to herself, Miranza stepped into the ‘fresher and wiped the condensation off the mirror so that she could take a better look at the cut on her forehead, which already seemed to be healing nicely thanks to the kolto.

Stripping out of the body glove was a challenge, and if Theron and Vector hadn’t both already been resting she would have gone to one of them for assistance, but she was able to manage on her own. As she peeled away the fabric she happened to glance down at her bare arms and she was suddenly assailed with an unexpected flash of memory.

_She heard him sigh above her and sank back onto her heels, looking up at him with a confused expression on her face. He was bored and annoyed with her, and she didn’t know what he wanted her to do. She had been following his instructions to the letter – use her hands and mouth, maintain eye contact, try to seem enthusiastic,_ don’t act like it’s such a fucking chore, Evie – _but it wasn’t enough and now he was getting angry._

_“Am I not … doing it right?” she asked, fearful of his response. If he wasn’t pleased then it would be bad, it would be very bad and –_

_He sighed again, stroking his fingers through her hair. “I’m not angry, Evie, I’m just disappointed. It frustrates me that you can’t even follow the simplest directions …”_

_She leaned into his touch instinctively even as fear and shame coursed through her. He was right, even with his clear instructions she was making a hash job of this, and if she couldn’t please him then how was she ever going to make proper use of these skills while on assignment? She felt tears welling up in her eyes and quickly tried to blink them back, knowing he would be even more unhappy with her if she started crying on him._

_He saw the tears, of course. He always saw the things she tried to hide. His hand clenched tightly in her hair and he used it to wrench her forward; she would have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her upright. As it was her knees scraped across the rough floorboards and she couldn’t suppress the small whimper of pain._

_“Stop sniveling,” he snapped, drawing her mouth back towards him. “Try again, and for fuck’s sake, Evie, don’t use your kriffing teeth.”_

Snapping back to herself with a gasp, the memory – if that’s what it was – already fading, Miranza realized that at some point she had stepped into the shower stall and turned the water on without checking the temperature first. Cold water pelted down over her and she quickly adjusted the dials, shivering violently. A dull headache had taken up residence behind her eyes and the faint stirrings of nausea made her stomach clench. She stood under the rapidly-warming water and looked down at her arms again, not even noticing the bands of bruising around both her wrists. The bruises were fresh and, if she had perceived them, she might have remarked that it looked as though she’d been restrained recently.

But Miranza didn't see the bruises. For her it was as though they didn't even exist.

Somewhere in the back of her mind a robotic voice intoned _“Welcome home, little sister.”_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter is dark and heavy, and contains non-graphic references to underage sex.

The next morning – or possibly early afternoon; Theron had lost all track of time – Miranza was already up and dressed and sitting at the table working on a datapad, being disgustingly productive while Theron and Vector slept. Theron rolled over in bed, expecting to bump into her, only to find her third of the bed empty and already cool. He sat up, rubbing grit out of his eyes, and spent a moment or two admiring the lean lines of Vector’s slumbering form. Then his eyes naturally gravitated towards the horrific scarring on Vector’s back, and Theron’s good mood was abruptly shattered.

The wounds had healed reasonably well, he noted, unable to tear his eyes away from his ... friend's (lover's ... _what do we call each other now?_ Theron had no frame of reference for a relationship such as the one he had with Miranza and Vector) back. He imagined Vector had had the best medical care credits could buy; even if it wasn’t obvious that Miranza would have been willing to spend a small fortune taking care of her husband, it was equally clear that for whatever reason Imperial Intelligence – Sith Intelligence, whatever you wanted to call it – had decided Vector was useful to them, and they weren’t about to let a useful asset be permanently crippled. Disfigured, yes, apparently _that_ was perfectly fine by them, but Vector was supposed to be Miranza’s protector, and he couldn’t serve that purpose if his body was ruined by whatever so-called ‘punishment’ the Dark Council decided to mete out to him. Besides that, Miranza was a skilled medic herself, and Theron seemed to recall her having a doctor on retainer – Lokin or something? Whatever the case, Vector would not have gone without expert care.

Without even noticing he was doing it, Theron found himself lightly tracing Vector’s scars, running his fingertips over the silvery lines that crisscrossed the Joiner’s lean, muscled back. He didn’t know why he was doing it, save that a part of him wanted to take inventory of the damage the Empire had done to the man he loved, in case he was ever granted the opportunity to pay them back in full. Vector's back had a strange texture to it as a result of the scars: in some places the skin was taut and shiny, in others bumpy or gouged; underneath it all, however, was the tight musculature Theron was familiar with, the long, lean lines of the tall, athletic man he'd come to love. Vector was a handsome man - a _beautiful_ man, if Theron was being honest with himself, and the scars did nothing to change that fact.

Theron felt it, the instant Vector came awake: the Joiner tensed, stiffening under Theron’s touch, and then his fathomless all-black eyes fluttered open and he saw who it was that was touching him and he relaxed again, smiling sleepily. In spite of Vector’s smile Theron pulled away, embarrassed at having been caught.

“Sorry,” he said, not entirely sure what he was apologizing for – taking liberties, perhaps, or for drawing attention to something Vector would almost certainly prefer to forget.

“Don’t be,” Vector murmured, voice thick with sleep. “It doesn’t hurt us, and Miranza …” He trailed off, expression growing clouded.

“What about Miranza?” Theron felt awkward speaking about her behind her back, but it was clear something was bothering Vector, and there were presently a number of things about her that were bothering _Theron_.

The Joiner sighed, closing his eyes. Theron resumed stroking his back, letting his fingers run over the scars and along the smooth planes of muscle. Vector obviously enjoyed it – he looked to be about half a heartbeat away from purring like a manka cat – but the Joiner had always been a particularly tactile person, far more at ease with physical contact than Theron or Miranza ever were. Theron knew it came in part from his Joiner nature: the Killiks were a tactile species, using touch to convey information and sentiment as readily as they used any other means of communication. While Vector did not speak of his life before his Joining, Theron knew he'd had a more conventional upbringing than he or Miranza had had, and based on how easily the Joiner expressed himself - physically as well as verbally - it seemed likely that he'd come from an openly affectionate family. Physical affection had probably always come easily to him, something Theron envied.

“She struggles with it,” Vector admitted at last, his eyes still closed. He pitched his voice low to ensure it didn’t carry beyond the bedroom, out to where Miranza might hear them. “They made her watch, of course.” He said it so casually, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to force a woman to watch her husband being whipped, but Theron understood: the punishment Vector had endured had been intended more for Miranza than for him, and forcing her to watch it happen just made sense. In a sick and twisted and decidedly Sith-like fashion. “She blames herself, as if we didn’t have a hand in making those choices. It has been … difficult.”

“You need to get out, Vector,” Theron replied. “Both of you. You need to get away.”

Vector sighed again and opened his eyes. “You already know we can’t. She won’t leave. And we … we would prefer not to.” He held a finger up to Theron’s lips, when Theron opened his mouth to protest. “Yes, we know. We’re fully aware of what they’re doing to us, love. We’re under no illusions that the leadership of the Empire is not monstrous, that what they’ve done to us is in any way acceptable or reasonable. But … Theron, there _are_ good people in the Empire, and we would like to believe that there are more good than bad. If you could see Jurio, the other planets we’ve helped, the ones we’ve brought order and stability to … you would understand why it is so difficult to contemplate abandoning all of it. We still believe we might have the power to affect change.”

It was Theron’s turn to sigh, his hand going still on Vector’s back as he lay his head down on the Joiner’s pillow, their faces scant millimeters apart.

“Is it really worth all of _this?”_ he asked, running his hand over the scars.

“We like to think so, yes. And in the meantime it is a moot point – Miranza cannot leave, and _we_ cannot leave without her. Until we can figure out what it is that compels her to stay …”

“Yeah … about that.” Theron shifted onto his back, folding his arms across his stomach. His wrists were beginning to ache; he was going to need to get up and take something for the pain soon. “What did you think about that thing with the droid? It recognized her, Vector.”

“Yes, we think it did.” Vector’s voice was very soft. “She wasn’t lying to us, however – at least, there was no deception in her aura. She has no memory of being in that place or interacting with that droid. But those words … ‘Little sister.’ We keep hearing that. We’re afraid for her.”

“Brainwashing?” Theron suggested, and just saying that kriffing word made his gut clench.

“Whatever it is, it is unlike the Castellan restraints,” Vector answered, with a faint hint of apology in his voice for bringing the conditioning technique up. “Your auras, when you were under the influence of the restraints … It is difficult to explain to someone who cannot see with Killik senses, but your auras were muted. Diminished, as if viewed through a muddy pool of water. We could see when the restraints were gone, because your auras were restored back to their natural brightness. You glow to us – both of you. And Miranza’s aura now … it is unchanged. She is as we have always seen her, glowing like the sun. If she is under some kind of brainwashing effect, we cannot see it. But … that does not mean that the effect is not there.”

Vector was right, it was difficult for Theron to fully comprehend what he meant when he spoke of auras and how they changed depending on circumstances. To a certain extent he wondered if the way Vector saw things was somehow similar to what it would be like to see through the Force, or even if perhaps the condition of Joining might enable someone who was previously Force-blind to develop a sensitivity. Weaker than what a Jedi or a Sith might possess, perhaps, but there nonetheless. It sounded like a beautiful way to see the world, and Theron would have envied him if the Joining didn't come with its own healthy heaping of brainwashing - whether or not Vector considered it as such.

Theron knew there were dozens of ways a person could be brainwashed or conditioned. That he and Miranza had both fallen victim to the Castellan restraints had more to do with their involvement with the Star Cabal than mere happenstance. If she was still somehow brainwashed – or had somehow become brainwashed again – it didn’t necessarily have to be with the restraints. A Sith Lord could have done it, maybe, or there could be a chemical component, or even just plain old behavioural conditioning.

Or it was nothing, and Miranza was simply loyal – beyond what Theron would consider the bonds of reasonableness – to the Empire. By his own admission _Vector_ didn’t want to leave; was it so unfathomable that she wouldn’t want to, either, without having some other pressure holding her in place? Couldn’t she simply have her own personal reasons for wanting to stay? Vector and Miranza had been raised in the Empire, and saw their world in ways that Theron couldn't comprehend - it didn't _have_ to be something sinister that compelled their loyalty, just because _he_ didn't like it.

_“Welcome home, little sister,”_ the droid’s voice echoed in Theron’s head, followed by the Chiss calmly saying _“I’ll deal with you later, little sister”_ and he shivered at the memories. No. No, there _was_ something more going on, and he needed to get to the bottom of it.

Any hope of falling back to sleep was completely blown apart by these nagging thoughts, and Theron sat up, throwing the covers back and climbing out of bed. Vector sighed, closing his eyes again and burrowing back under the blankets in a last-ditch effort to get some more rest. Theron tossed him an affectionate smile and padded barefoot out to the main sitting area, where Miranza was taking up the entire table with a sprawl of datapads and slicing equipment. She looked up, smiling, as he entered the room.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she said cheerfully, completely oblivious to the dark thoughts that were plaguing him. She nodded in the direction of the tiny kitchen. “There’s a pot of caf on, if you’re interested.”

Theron nodded and headed into the kitchen. On the counter a couple of mugs were already set out for him and Vector to use, next to a bottle of myocaine tablets and a fresh tube of kolto gel. He was legitimately torn between which of those three things – caf, painkillers or healing supplies – he appreciated more, and the fact that Miranza had thought of him and his needs made a warm, happy glow take up residence inside him. He tried to imagine a life where this kind of casual intimacy and care was the norm, and for the first time in Theron's memory it didn't seem like such an impossibility. Helping himself to a couple of tablets, he fixed up his mug of caf and carried it and the kolto gel back out to the table. He kissed her on the forehead before sitting down – noticing, as he did, that the cut above her eye was already mostly healed – and swallowing the pills with a quick sip of caf.

“Is Vector awake yet?” she asked, her attention focused on one of the datapads she’d stolen from the office.

“Yeah, more or less, although I think he's trying to pretend otherwise,” he answered. He took another drink, debating bringing up what he and the Joiner had been discussing, before giving it up as pointless without having further information to go on. He trusted Vector’s judgment when it came to Miranza; if Vector was convinced she believed she was telling the truth, then she likely was – which meant there was little point in trying to convince her otherwise or digging deeper into the matter. Much as he might want to. “What’re you working on?”

“Finances, actually.” Miranza tilted the datapad so that he could see the viewscreen, and sure enough he recognized a ledger, with columns and rows of numbers. She grinned, clearly pleased with herself. “You wouldn’t believe the number of conspiracies I’ve cracked just by looking at the bookkeeping.”

Theron could believe her, actually, but as far as he was concerned he hadn’t had enough caf to start doing math, so he just nodded and smiled. In his experience she was right: numbers didn’t lie, and even when people were fudging the books they still tended to keep records of what they were doing to get the numbers they wanted. He'd had more than a few of his own investigations that had been cracked by finding a hidden ledger somewhere. He hadn’t really considered a financial angle for their current investigation, but credits were as good a motivator for wrong-doing as anything else.

“It’s strange,” she mused, taking the datapad back and staring down at it. “Whoever did the accounting was keeping track of three separate figures: total credits acquired, the credits they were _claiming_ they acquired – a much lower total, of course – and something else entirely, some kind of … expenses account, I think? But more like … credits they received from some other source, some income that wasn’t from prostitution. It’s hard to get it all sorted, though, because everything is annotated in code – names and other identifiers are reduced to nonsensical letters and numbers, and they’re consistent, so they’re clearly referring to the same sources over and over again, but I can’t tell who they are without cracking the code.”

“Do you want me to try tackling that?”

Miranza shook her head, smiling again as her husband joined them. Vector’s hair was mussed from sleeping on it and he was rubbing at his eyes, but he managed a smile for both of them before drifting into the kitchen for his own mug of caf.

“No,” Miranza answered, once Vector came and sat at the table with them. “I want Vector to take a look at your wrists – after your caf, my love, of course, unless Theron needs it done sooner – and then I want you to get started on one of these other datapads. There might be something in one of them that gives me insight into the code, but even if there’s not, we’ve still got a lot of intel to work through.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Theron replied, downing another mouthful of caf and picking one of the datapads at random. Might as well get started now, while he waited for Vector to finish his caf. Miranza wasn’t kidding: there was a _lot_ of intel to go through.

The first datapad was only lightly encrypted, requiring the kind of slicing Theron could have attempted in his sleep, and before long he was engrossed in his work, the three of them sitting in companionable silence.

O o O o O

Several hours later Theron had moved on from the datapads and had decided to tackle the information he’d managed to download from the protocol droid. The datapads were interesting, but only in the sense that they provided him with a fairly solid understanding of how a brothel was run, and even that was only in the most mundane sense: the supplies necessary (more synthskins and lube than he could ever use in a lifetime, but also a lot of far more innocuous purchases like cleaning supplies, toiletries and linens), the scheduling (whether or not they worked their voluntarily, the women seemed to be given a fairly reasonable schedule, with as many days off as on and the kind of regular hours Theron would never see working for the SIS), and even a general duty roster. It was boring, unexciting work, and if Theron had ever considered dabbling in prostitution to pay the bills (he had not) he was quickly disabused of the notion (unless his occasional thoughts of switching over to Sith Intelligence, where they were clearly making way more money than him, counted).

Cracking the intel from the protocol droid proved to be more of a challenge, and Miranza had to key in some codes before he could get anywhere with it. Once he was in, though, he discovered that the droid was the real treasure trove of information, and he was glad that Miranza or Vector had thought to grab the dataspike after he’d triggered the alarms. He had been too out of it to be of much use at the time and it wasn’t until they were back at the safe house that he remembered the dataspike in the first place.

Theron had moved his slicing operation over to the couch, where he could sprawl and stretch his legs. His muscles were still aching from the day before, and although his wrists weren’t nearly as bad as he’d feared – Vector had slathered them in kolto gel and rebandaged them for him – he had to keep up with the myocaine tablets to keep the pain at bay. Miranza decided to go for a run, having been up for several hours before he and Vector joined her and being in desperate need of a break from sitting hunched over the table, and Vector had opted to accompany her, since he wasn't much assistance when it came to slicing and code-breaking. Their safe house was in a secure location and had above-average security, so Theron wasn’t particularly concerned about being left on his own - although he did keep a blaster pistol close at hand, just in case.

From what Theron could tell, the protocol droid had served as the receptionist and scheduler for the brothel, and as a result the encrypted files included a detailed record of every employee (or ‘employee,’ as the case may be) of the brothel as well as all the customers. Most of the information was several years out of date, confirming his suspicions that the ‘massage parlour’ had been closed for a while, but it dated back more than forty years, which meant that the files were quite extensive and made for dense reading. The files pertaining to management had the same code Miranza had been fighting with so Theron couldn’t tell who had been running the operation, but he was able to discern that there had been one person in charge from the very beginning whereas the various underlings seemed to change hands every five years or so. One of them might have been Admiral Staxon, but the information was so vague that he wouldn’t swear to it. He was pretty sure that the person in charge was Sith, though, and if he could figure out who the Dark Lord was he might be able to discern why the brothel had suddenly gone dark. Sith Lords tended to be flashy, their exploits well-documented; if a Sith had been running the show, chances were he (or she) would be on file somewhere.

The list of customers was coded, just like the management, but it was a _very_ lengthy list and Theron wouldn’t have been surprised if he recognized more than a few names. His years in the SIS had given him an above-average knowledge of the movers and shakers in the Sith Empire, and chances were some of them would be involved in prostitution - financing it, reaping the rewards of it, or simply as patrons. If he could crack the code he suspected he’d have some pretty impressive blackmail material at the very least, and it would also give him some idea as to why it was so important to keep this place hidden – in all likelihood, someone on that list was responsible for sending an assassin after him, or if not them, then they might know who was responsible.

The files on the employees weren’t coded at all, because unlike the management and customers, the women working for the brothel weren’t important enough to need their identities protected. There were no names; instead each woman was given an alphanumeric designation: JG2473, FR1413, EV1750, AJ9321 and so on. As with the customers, there were a _lot_ of employees, the list going back decades, long before Theron was born, long before the Treaty of Coruscant and the years of fighting before that. Theron flipped through the files, pausing to stare in some confusion at one of the pictures. He wasn’t the best judge of age, but the green-skinned Twi’lek staring back at him looked awfully young. He started to look more deeply at the dates; given how far back the information stretched he hadn’t really been focusing on the math, but now that he was paying attention …

_“Fuck,”_ Theron said, out loud and with great emphasis.

The ‘employees’ at the brothel hadn’t been grown women, as he had assumed.

They had been children – teenagers at most, and very, _very_ much underage.

Bile rose in Theron’s throat as he quickly searched through the files, comparing the dates of birth (or estimated dates of birth, in most cases) of the ‘employees’ with the dates they had been working at the brothel. The oldest was fifteen, the youngest was ten.

Ten. _Ten_ fucking years old. _What kind of sick fucks would do this to children ...?_

Theron covered his mouth, willing himself not to throw up all over the datapads and intel, and as his mind started racing – running panicky loops like a demented Kowakian monkey-lizard on giggledust – Vector’s words rose unbidden to the forefront of his memory.

_“You would have been … what, thirteen or so since your last ‘procedure’ – whatever that is?”_

With shaking hands Theron keyed in the search parameters: human, fair skin, blonde hair, blue eyes. There were a significant number of hits, but when he narrowed it down by age he came back with three files, all with the same alphanumeric coding in place of names. He flipped past the first two pictures of girls far too young to be in a place like that brothel, but at the third picture he froze, swallowing heavily around the increasing need to vomit.

_EV1750,_ the designation read, but the picture was of an 11-year-old Miranza Gerrick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ducks and hides*


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter continues where the last one left off and continues to address the subject of underage prostitution.

Stunned, Theron found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the picture. Despite the age difference and the strange alphanumeric designation, there was no mistaking the girl for anyone other than Miranza. Even at eleven she had the same full, gently rounded lips, the pert nose, the wide blue eyes. But this girl was painfully young and vulnerable-looking in a way that Miranza – _his_ Miranza – had never been, even at her lowest and most exposed. She was a child – a child who had already seen and been through too much, and who had probably never had a childhood. If she hadn’t been stripped of her naivete and innocence before Nar Shaddaa, then however long she had spent at that horrible place would have finished the job.

 _Imperial Intelligence training facility,_ he thought, hand still covering his mouth although he was no longer certain if he was trying to prevent himself from throwing up – or screaming. That’s what she’d told him: that she had been raised among fellow orphans at a special facility on Dromund Kaas, and trained from early childhood to be an Intelligence operative. If this was how the Empire managed such things …

Did she know? Had she been lying to him – and to Vector – this whole time? Theron didn’t think so. Vector insisted her aura read as truthful, and while Miranza might be an expert manipulator her husband didn’t share her skills at lying and misdirection, and Theron honestly couldn’t think of any reason for Vector to lie. If Miranza had been telling the truth, or what she believed to be the truth, then …

She didn’t know. Somehow, some way, she didn’t remember her time on Nar Shaddaa. She didn’t remember the brothel.

How the actual _fuck_ was he supposed to tell her something like this? _Oh, hey, did you know you used to be a child prostitute?_ Yeah, that sounded fucking _perfect._ A hysterical laugh burbled up in his throat and was quickly squashed. This was insane. This was … People didn’t _do_ this.

Except, of course, that Theron knew perfectly well that people _did_ do this sort of thing. It was impossible to be in his line of work and not be aware of the kinds of depths people could sink to. But selling children? That was above and beyond the kinds of horrible shit he typically had to deal with, and he had to deal with some incredibly horrible shit.

Theron’s hand seemed to move of its own volition, his finger skimming through the pages of Miranza’s file. He was aware that it was a gross violation of her privacy, but he seemed unable to help himself – now that he knew this much, he felt compelled to know more, and there was a part of him that hoped that by reading the file he would find something – _anything_ – that would indicate the file actually belonged to someone else, some other poor little girl who nonetheless bore a remarkable resemblance to the woman he loved. And on top of that hope was another: that if this really was Miranza, her file would give some indication as to what had been done to her, whether it was brainwashing or behavioural conditioning or Sith magic or whatever, and then they could _fix_ it and she’d be free from all of this.

Because surely, once she knew about this – once she saw this awful fucking file – she would want to leave the Empire, right? Her and Vector both. There would be no pretending the Empire was still a safe, sane, reasonable place for them. This revelation about what had been done to her as a child should be enough to tip them both over the edge and then the three of them would be free to make a life together in the Republic.

Which, of course, led back to Theron’s earlier quandary: how the fuck was he going to tell her?

EV1750’s file was remarkably small compared to some of the other girls’. Theron didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he hoped it meant she hadn’t spent as long at the brothel as the others had. There was a date of birth (he had no idea if it was the same as the one in her heavily redacted Intelligence profile) and brief medical history prior to her arrival at the brothel. Judging by that medical profile she’d been a fairly normal, active child, with typical childhood illnesses and injuries. After her arrival, however … that was a different story. The list of injuries increased, changing from the standard bumps and falls little kids had into the much more obvious signs of repeated and deliberate abuse, and Theron had to look away as rage threatened to overwhelm him.

The file ended sometime after her thirteenth birthday, but it gave no indication as to where she had gone after that point. Was that when she’d been sent into the _actual_ Intelligence training facility she’d spoken of before? Was that when her life, as she knew it, truly began? Or had she somehow gone on to something even more sinister and awful, and it just wasn’t documented here because it had no relevance to her tenure at the brothel?

Theron set the datapad on the couch and slowly and calmly walked into the ‘fresher. He almost didn’t make it before his rigid control broke and he found himself crumpled over the basin, emptying the scant contents of his stomach. He was glad he’d only had caf; that was easier to throw up than actual food would have been. When he finished – when there was absolutely nothing left for him to throw up – he rinsed his mouth out, then brushed his teeth, and _then_ rinsed his mouth a second time for good measure. By the time he stepped out of the ‘fresher, Miranza and Vector were returning from their run, and Theron very nearly turned around and hid in the tiny room rather than face them.

He made himself come out and greet them, and judging by their concerned reactions he suspected he probably looked about as sick and miserable as he felt. When Vector asked – in that incredibly patient, considerate way he had – what was wrong, all Theron could do was to hold the datapad out to Miranza and let her see for herself. He didn’t have the words.

Miranza took the datapad from him, frowning, and looked at the viewscreen. Her brows drew together, her mouth pursed. She looked back up at him, an expression of hurt confusion on her face.

“What is this, Theron?” she asked, voice deathly calm. “Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?”

“Am I fucking laughing?” he replied, although that same hysterical laugh was threatening to break free again and he was afraid that if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Vector took the datapad from Miranza, and Theron saw the exact moment the Joiner understood what Theron was showing them, because his normally tan face went a ghastly shade of white.

“We will find the persons responsible for this,” Vector said, and if Miranza sounded deathly calm, Vector sounded like some kind of demonic entity, hellbent upon vengeance. “We will find them, and we will kill every single one of them.”

It was then that it seemed to click with Miranza that this wasn’t a joke, that Theron wasn’t trying to pull off an incredibly tasteless prank – that this was _real_ and that little girl was _her_ and that something truly awful had happened to her. Her face went perfectly blank – and then she turned and bolted from the apartment.

O o O o O

Concern for his wife made Vector want to chase after her, but instinct kept him rooted, the datapad still clenched tightly in his hand, his eyes following her as she fled the apartment. The door closed behind her and he continued staring, no longer seeing the door, his mind focused inwards. Beside him Theron made a move to follow her, but Vector caught him by the arm and held him back.

“Give her time,” he said, amazed at how calm he sounded when inside he was anything but. “She will return when she is ready.”

“Are you _insane?”_ Theron asked, shaking free of his grasp. “She’s all keyed up and upset. What if she goes and does something stupid?”

Anger and worry overcame Vector’s normally serene nature, and he said the first thing that came to mind: “No, Theron, _you_ are the one who does the foolish thing in response to feeling overwhelmed. _Miranza_ simply runs and hides until she has control over herself.” Then he blinked, shaking himself, shamed by the look of pain that was quickly suppressed on Theron’s face. “We are sorry. We should not have said that.”

“No.” Theron shrugged, staring down at the floor. “You’re not wrong.”

“Still,” Vector said softly, “that was hurtful and we should not have said it.”

He sighed, looking back down at the viewscreen of the datapad. The child’s face – Miranza’s face – stared back up at him, stubbornness and defiance in her direct blue-eyed gaze. He’d never seen pictures of his wife as a child; as far as he had known, no such pictures existed. She’d been a beautiful child, but that wasn’t a surprise to him; he couldn’t imagine her ever _not_ being beautiful. Seeing her there, young and vulnerable and yet still so quintessentially _her_ made something ache deep within his chest, and he rubbed his thumb over the child’s cheek, his vision blurring with unshed tears.

“Hmmph,” he murmured, chuckling faintly, “Baby fat. We never would have imagined.”

“How are you so calm about this?” Theron asked. He’d gone back to looking at the door as if expecting Miranza to come bursting in at any moment – and well she might.

“We’re _not_ calm,” Vector assured him, voice soft. He searched for some way to describe what he was feeling, but there was no single word that accurately expressed the mishmash of emotions he was currently experiencing. He turned the datapad off and set it down with deliberate care before looking back at Theron.

“We are not calm,” he said again. “But we have long suspected that our beloved was the victim of child abuse. Having it now illuminated for us in blinding, perfect clarity does not in any way change how we perceive Miranza. All this?” He tapped the datapad with one long finger. “It changes nothing. It happened before we knew her, and it no more defines her than what Samar did to you defines _you.”_ Theron winced at that, and Vector was sorry for it but he hoped it served to drive his point home. “She is still the woman we –” He broke off, cleared his throat and tried again, struggling with the words, “She is still the woman _I_ love.”

Theron blinked, no doubt startled by Vector’s use of the singular pronoun.

“It is an effort for us to think as an individual,” Vector said carefully, “but in this instance we thought it might be necessary to differentiate, because it occurs to us that what _we_ feel for her is not automatically what _you_ feel. While our own opinions remain unchanged by this … this revelation … perhaps yours have not.”

“I don’t … That’s not …” Theron scowled, the anger on his face doing little to hide the hurt in his hazel eyes. Vector wanted to comfort him, to reassure him, but this was something Theron needed to figure out on his own. “That’s not fair, Vector.”

“No, it’s not.” Vector deliberately softened his voice again, trying to put as much sympathy and understanding into his tone as possible. He understood Theron’s struggle: it was painfully obvious the man had very little experience when it came to handling complicated emotions like love, and he was only just coming to terms with how he felt about Miranza and Vector. To have this new information dumped on him just as he was striving to understand his feelings for them was undoubtedly difficult, and Vector was not unsympathetic. But by that same token, Vector wasn’t about to let Theron hurt Miranza through sheer ignorance and clumsiness. “None of this is fair, love.”

“You’ve got that right,” Theron said with a sigh. He crossed the room, throwing himself down onto the couch. “I feel like an asshole for thinking this, but you’re right: it does change how I feel. Knowing this …” He gestured helplessly towards the datapad and all its horrible secrets. “It makes me question everything. What if she’s only interested in me because that’s what she’s _programmed_ to be? We have no idea what was done to her, Vector. What if she’s literally never had a choice about anything in her life? If I’m … if _we’re_ with her, is that her choice? Or is it just … conditioning?”

Vector smiled faintly, looking down at his hands. This, at least, was one area he considered himself to have some expertise in. Between multiple lovers confined by Castellan restraints and his own forced Joining thanks to Project Protean, he knew _exactly_ what he was talking about.

“We think her love is genuine,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully. “We think her desire to be with us – with _both_ of us – is genuine. Even when she was struggling under the Castellan restraints, she wanted us. When _you_ were likewise imprisoned, you still expressed desire for us.”

“Yeah,” Theron agreed, “and _you_ wouldn’t have anything to do with me because you couldn’t be sure I wasn’t just conditioned to respond to you.”

“True,” Vector replied, shrugging. “There are no easy answers in this, love. We don’t have all the information – as you said, we’ve no idea what was done to her. But now it seems we’re starting to find out.”

O o O o O

It was well over an hour before Miranza returned, and in that time Theron forced himself to focus on the other datapads, hoping to distract himself from his increasingly conflicted thoughts.

He understood what Vector was saying: this new information about Miranza’s past shouldn’t change how Theron felt about her. Regardless of whether or not he’d known about what had happened to her, those things had _already_ happened long before they’d met, and the Miranza _he_ knew had always – whether she knew it herself or not – had those life experiences. They may have shaped and moulded her (he couldn’t deny that the man he was now had been changed by what he had gone through with Samar and his own stint as a conditioned puppet controlled by sinister forces), but they didn’t define her as a person.

At the same time, however, he was deathly afraid that he was in some way perpetuating the cycle of abuse Miranza had experienced, and he didn’t know how to express that concern in a way that didn’t make him feel like either a complete idiot or a complete jackass.

When Miranza returned it was as abruptly as she when she left: she stormed into the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her, and came to stand in front of Theron and Vector. Before either of the men could speak she held up one hand.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said. There was a faint tremor in her voice but her expression was calm and firm. “I can’t, not right now, not without feeling like I’m going insane and –”

“What,” Vector said suddenly, cutting her off, “is _that?”_ He moved forward, taking her hand in his and raising it gently, and Theron saw what had caught his attention: when Miranza had lifted her hand to silence them, her shirt sleeve had slid down, baring her lower arm – and the dark bands of bruising around her wrist.

Vector lowered her arm again, brushing her sleeve back to expose the bruises, and then repeated the process with her other arm. Sure enough, both wrists were covered in the same dense bruising.

“When did this happen?” he asked her, frowning. “Did someone hurt you while you were out?” He shook his head, dismissing that idea. “No, this didn’t just happen, these bruises are older than that … Miranza, _when_ did this happen? Who did this to you?”

Miranza was frowning too, and shaking her head, staring down at her bare wrists in confusion and burgeoning fear. “I don’t know … I don’t remember …”

Theron tried to remember the last time he saw Miranza’s bare arms. They’d woken up naked together the day before, and he was certain she had been fine then. (In fact, he was _positive_ she’d been perfectly fine, and seemed to recall making a rather thorough examination of her at the time, although he hadn’t explicitly focused on her arms …) They had spent the day together and then gone to investigate the brothel, and when they got home … It had been dark when she’d come to bed; Theron had already been mostly asleep. The next morning she was up before them, up – and dressed.

The droid’s voice echoed loudly in Theron’s mind, the garbled phrase it had churned out when Miranza returned from her solo investigation, just before the automated defenses went off and everything went tits up. What had it said? _“Our records indicate … it has been thirteen minutes …”_

Thirteen minutes … since her last procedure. Miranza had brushed it off, when Vector had asked her about it, and they had let it go.

They shouldn’t have.

“We need to go back,” Theron said suddenly, jumping up off the couch.

“We can’t – you’re hurt,” Vector began, releasing Miranza and turning to him.

“No, _she’s_ hurt,” Theron retorted, pointing at her. “And whatever did it is back at the brothel. I’m sure of it.”

O o O o O

Theron was surprised by the presence of Imperial military in front of the ‘massage parlour,’ but given the commotion the three of them had undoubtedly caused the day before perhaps he shouldn’t have been. There were two heavily armed officers standing in front of the smashed doors (Theron didn’t remember the doors being destroyed and wondered whether it had been Vector or Miranza who had been responsible) and yellow caution tape everywhere. The three spice addicts who had been huddled in front of the store yesterday were now gone, and Theron wasn’t sure if they’d disappeared for their own safety or if they’d been taken in for questioning.

“Well, this makes things trickier,” he commented as they approached the storefront.

“No it doesn’t,” Miranza replied, before walking straight up to the two guards.

The two men immediately snapped to attention, adopting identical wary expressions. Theron and Vector hastened to catch up to her, neither one having any clue what the hell she was planning on doing.

“Hold!” one of the guards intoned, his grip on his blaster rifle making the command that much more threatening. “This building is off-limits in accordance with –”

“We’re here to investigate the break-in,” Miranza said in a bored tone of voice.

The two guards exchanged glances before the first one spoke again. “No one said anything about this.”

“And somehow the fact that _your_ people don’t have their shit together is supposed to be _my_ fault?” Miranza still sounded bored, but she let a faint hint of annoyance creep through, as if this was but one of the many hassles she had to put up with on a regular basis. “Just let us do our jobs and we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

The guards’ expressions turned obstinate and for a moment Theron was certain they were going to be forced to leave, but then Miranza folded her arms across her chest and glared up at them.

“Fine,” she said curtly. “Let me just get Darth Carnvarr on the line and you can explain to _her_ why you’re interfering in her investigation. I’m sure she’ll be _thrilled_ to have to drop everything just to talk to you.”

The way she said it – irritated but slightly indifferent, with the clear knowledge that _she_ wasn’t going to be the one with hell to pay for interrupting a Sith’s day – was what convinced the guards to acquiesce. It wasn’t the first time Theron had been exposed to the typical Imperial tendency to let the Sith work unimpeded, no questions asked, but it never ceased to amaze him how effective the strategy was. Imperial citizens seemed to have it ingrained in them that they weren’t supposed to interfere in anything the Sith did, and it caused no end of problems for them.

It was, however, pretty damned convenient for the three of them.

The guards let them in with no further hassle, one of them even going so far as to hold the battered door open for them. Miranza waved them off with the imperious air of someone who answered to a far higher authority and stepped into the brothel, followed closely by Vector and finally Theron. The door was closed behind them, hanging just slightly off its hinges.

“Are you sure that was wise, beloved?” Vector asked quietly once they were inside the main reception area.

Theron looked around at the rampant destruction, curious about what had happened while he’d been more or less out of commission. The two turrets were completely destroyed, jagged pieces of metal and plasteel scattered across the floor and over the reception desk. The droid was still bent head-first over the desk, for once not immediately coming to life to greet them, and behind the desk Theron could see what he thought were the remnants of the cuffs he’d been trapped in. Both cuffs had been ripped in half, torn apart at the seams, and on one of them Theron saw the wicked metal needle that had been jabbed through his wrist. He gave a small shudder.

“They’re going to report back to their superiors about us,” Vector continued, the three of them carefully stepping over ruined turrets on their way to the back office. “A blonde woman, a Joiner and a dark-haired man with implants? Someone is going to figure out we were here. Won’t that be dangerous for us?”

“Right now, lover, I don’t give a fuck what they report back,” Miranza replied, although she turned back towards the front door, arching an eyebrow in question. “I can go kill them, though, if you think that might be safer?”

Vector started, exchanging glances with Theron. “No … No, that won’t be necessary. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Are you all right?” Theron asked her, as she shrugged and went back to the office door, expertly slicing through the security.

“No,” Miranza answered tightly, “I’m really not.”

“Beloved …”

“Sweetheart …”

“Not now.” Miranza held up her hand, cutting them both off, but she gave them a small smile by way of apology. “I just … Not right now, okay? Let’s just get through this and I’ll save my impending nervous breakdown for when it’s more convenient.”

Theron exchanged glances with Vector again before nodding in agreement. As much as he wanted to talk about all of this – as much as they all _needed_ to talk – now was not the time. Miranza _wasn’t_ okay (none of them were), but she was clearly able to function and if she said she could keep herself together for the time being then Theron had little choice but to believe her. And if she did happen to fall apart while they were still in the brothel, well … he and Vector could hopefully get her out in one piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, upon replaying the IA storyline (again) I remembered that there _are_ instances in which Vector refers to himself in first-person singular in order to make himself explicitly clear. That really touched something in me and so I thought I'd use it here for the same reason.
> 
> Also, it's a bit of an abrupt ending but it was starting to run long and the next part is going to be lengthy enough, so this was the most natural break I could use.


	15. Chapter 15

The door behind the reception desk led to a back office, just as Miranza had described. It was small and cramped, with an array of bookshelves, a cluttered desk and a number of filing cabinets all crowded into one incredibly tight space. It was also dusty and dark and there was a lingering aroma that Theron could best describe as a mixture of body odour and mildew which seemed very out of place for the room itself. He also couldn’t see anything in the office that would possibly be responsible for the bruises on Miranza’s wrists – but he _did_ see a small, narrow door at the back of the room that immediately piqued his curiosity.

“What’s behind there?” he asked, gesturing towards the door.

Miranza frowned, her brows coming together as she stared at the door for what seemed like the first time. “I don’t remember that door being there.”

_Right,_ Theron thought, but he kept it to himself, all the more determined to see what was behind that door. Miranza had been in this room before and she was an observant woman; there was no way she could have failed to notice the door before now. Vector looked at him, his mouth set in a grim line, and motioned for Theron to lead the way.

It only took him three steps to cross the office and stand in front of the door – that’s how tiny and cramped the space was. As they approached it, Vector looked around, a curious expression on his face as he took in the room around them. Theron remembered that Vector had been the one to search the hallways on either side of the reception area, and he knew from the Joiner’s description of the place that those hallways had branched back behind the front room. From what Theron could tell, therefore, this back office – and whatever lay beyond – was likely in the centre of the rather large square those hallways created.

“This room is far too small for the available space,” Vector said. “Whatever is beyond this door must be much, much larger.”

“Only one way to find out,” Theron replied, pushing the door open.

As Vector had predicted, the room beyond was bigger, although that wasn’t what caught Theron’s attention the moment he stepped through the door.

No, what he noticed first was the … _thing_ … in the centre of the room.

The first thing that sprang to mind was a flashback to Darth Karrid, the Falleen Sith Lord who had piloted the _Ascendant Spear_ through the use of a cybernetic interface. Theron remembered her and the way she’d been connected to the battle cruiser through spinal and cranial implants, and how the ship had responded to her every thought and command. What he saw before him now was a similar melding of flesh and circuitry: a woman – Rattataki, perhaps, or an exceptionally pale human – perched on a large metallic throne, wires projecting from both arms and legs, and more tubes and wires connecting her to another strange chair in front of her. That second chair reminded him of nothing so much as the one he’d woken up on, back at Dirge’s tattoo parlour, save that Dirge’s chair had not had restraints attached to the arm-, leg- and headrests. The restraints on the armrests were in just about the exact right place to explain the bruises around Miranza’s wrists, and Theron wondered if she had a set of ankle bruises to match.

Theron was almost positive the mildew and body odour smell was coming from the woman. He could see that she was alive; her chest rose and fell, and some of the thin clear tubes attached to her arms appeared to be circulating blood or some other dark fluid. She was alive, but certainly not well: she was emaciated-looking, with hollow cheeks and dark bruising under her eyes, and the wires protruded from hard, crusted skin that showed obvious signs of infection. He was about to ask Miranza if she had ever seen this woman before when the woman suddenly opened her eyes and _LOOKED_ at them.

Theron was not, and would never be, Force sensitive – but the moment the woman opened her glittering silver eyes he felt waves upon waves of Force energy buffeting against him, enough that he staggered and had to throw a hand out to the wall behind him to catch himself.

The mind slamming against his was centred around a single command: _submit._ Theron could feel it, could feel the weight of it pushing against him, urging him to act, to _obey._ He fought against it, grimacing at the unsavoury feeling of another mind forcing itself against his own. His knees shook with the intense urge to kneel – to prostrate himself before the woman and await her further commands. At the same time he had a strong sensation that he knew this woman; more than that, he felt an intense sense of kinship and belonging. _Mother,_ something whispered inside of him – not a whisper, exactly, but a conviction, the sense of rightness. _Mother, protector, nurturer._ But Theron knew precisely who his mother was, and this woman was most definitely _not_ Satele Shan.

That realization tore through him, and with it came a profound sense of bereavement, as if somehow he had been forcibly separated from this woman simply through his own acknowledgement that she _wasn’t_ his mother. He found himself startled and horrified to discover that he _wanted_ her to be; something inside of him was convinced that this woman would shelter him, would nurture and love him in all the ways his own mother never had, and he had to fight against himself to push that longing away.

_WELCOME HOME, SWEET CHILD._ The voice, sickly sweet and dripping with poison, was inside Theron’s head; the woman didn’t open her mouth at all but he knew she was the one who was speaking. She looked directly at Miranza with an expression false sincerity and affection. _I SEE YOU BROUGHT SOME NEW FRIENDS TO PLAY WITH. HOW THOUGHTFUL OF YOU. YOU ALWAYS WERE A THOUGHTFUL CHILD._

The way she spoke – the way her voice sounded inside Theron’s mind – made the longing inside of him intensify. He wanted to bask in her approval. He wanted her to be telling _him_ that he was a thoughtful child. He wanted her to be happy with him. He wanted all that attention and approval focused on himself, and a part of him resented Miranza for being the target.

Beside him, Miranza stood stock-still, staring at the woman with a mixture of fear and yearning on her face. On her other side, Vector was likewise frozen in place, wearing a similar expression. Whatever Theron was feeling, he knew he was at least somewhat shielded from it by his implants and his childhood training with Master Zho, but Vector and Miranza had no such protection. The Force persuasion buffeting against him was hitting _them_ full-blast, and they were powerless against it.

The woman lifted her head, turning her gaze on Theron, and he felt her press against his mind again. He fought back, reaching out to grab Miranza’s arm, to pull her away. He discovered that he _could_ move, and as he did so the woman frowned at him and the pressure on his mind increased, shifting and twisting inside of him. He could feel her displeasure radiating across the room. She was disappointed with him. She was disappointed with all of them, and it _hurt,_ even through his shielding. Miranza dropped to her knees, choking back a hoarse sob, but Vector gave himself a little shake, seeming to come to his senses.

The woman’s gaze snapped to Vector, and she scowled. _NO. NONE OF THAT._ Her hand, resting on the arm of her throne, twitched, her fingers waggling in Vector’s direction, and suddenly the Joiner sagged forward. When he straightened again – resuming the same ram-rod straight position he’d been in when Theron first noticed him standing there – the woman laughed and went back to looking at Theron.

_YOU DISAPPOINT ME, SWEET CHILD._ She was speaking to Miranza, but her gaze was fixed on Theron, and the pressure in his head increased. He felt a thin trickle of blood dribble down from his nose, and he raised a hand to wipe it away. His movements – the fact that he could move of his own accord – seemed to annoy the woman, and her disapproval was a palpable, painful thing that made him want to drop to his knees and beg her forgiveness. _THIS ONE HAS BEEN TAMPERED WITH. THIS ONE REJECTS MY LOVE. THIS ONE IS … DEFECTIVE._

That one word - _defective_ \- cut through Theron like a knife. Beside him, Vector made a small sound of discomfort.

“I’m sorry,” Miranza gasped out, and to Theron’s horror she sounded years younger – a child, facing the wrath of a disapproving parent and terrified by what it represented. She was looking at the woman, crawling forward on her hands and knees until she was directly in front of the throne.

_NO MATTER. SIT DOWN, SWEET CHILD, I CAN FIX THIS._ The woman gestured at the chair in front of her throne, motioning for Miranza to take a seat.

Miranza flinched, shaking her head. “I don’t … I don’t want to.”

Theron was moving forward before he had time to think about it, intending to grab Miranza and haul her back to her feet – to grab both her and Vector and get them the hell out of there. He was dimly aware somewhere in the back of his mind that his implants or his training with Master Zho must be what were shielding him from the woman’s Force persuasion, and he sent a silent prayer of thanks towards his late mentor for granting him that protection. If he was this affected by the woman’s power that was slamming against his shields, he couldn’t even imagine how much worse it had to be for the two Imperials.

Just as Theron bent to catch Miranza by the arm he felt a surge of motion behind him. He barely had time to dodge before Vector’s fist came flying at his head. As he lunged back, biting back a cry of shock, he saw Vector’s eyes for the first time since they entered the room.

Gone were the all-black eyes of a Joiner. In their place was the greenish-hazel Vector had had before his transformation.

“I’m sorry, Theron,” Vector rasped, struggling against whatever control the woman had over him, “I can’t … I’m trying …”

_STOP RESISTING. YOU’RE ONLY MAKING THINGS WORSE FOR YOURSELVES._

Theron cried out as a sudden wave of pain threatened to overtake him, his knees buckling. His head was pounding, an insistent pressure behind his eyes that made him feel as though his brains were attempting to burst free of his skull. Vector staggered, letting out a similar cry of pain, and then surged forward again, swinging his fists blindly towards Theron. He managed another dodge; whatever the woman was doing to Vector – or perhaps it was simply the Joiner’s own efforts to break free of her control – it left him clumsy and uncoordinated, with none of his usual lethal grace. Theron considered himself lucky: Vector was stronger and tougher than he was, and he had no doubts that the Joiner would win in a fight between them.

_STOP HIM, MY CHILDREN. HE WANTS TO TAKE YOU FROM ME._

Theron could feel it: her disapproval, her disappointment with him, and it _hurt._ Oh, stars, how it hurt. He wanted nothing more than to give in, to kneel at her feet as Miranza was doing, to stop resisting and let this woman take care of him. She promised him kinship, protection – belonging. She promised him all the things he’d never had as a child, all the things he had been denied simply because his birth mother had made the decision to let him go. He wanted to relent and accept that comfort and protection, and he found himself moving forward -

Vector lashed out, his right fist connecting solidly with Theron’s jaw and for a moment Theron saw stars. Whether or not Vector intended it that punch shook Theron free of the woman’s control, the sudden burst of pain shattering the tendrils of need and longing that had been slowly insinuating themselves inside his mind. He recovered in time to block another punch, Vector’s left hook striking the solid expanse of flesh above Theron’s elbow instead of where he had been aiming: Theron’s face. Theron’s own fist caught Vector in the gut, causing the Joiner to double over with a sharp exhalation of breath as he followed through by bringing his knee up to meet Vector’s face. Theron cringed both at the audible crunch and at Vector’s muffled cry of pain, and when Vector lifted his head again the lower half of his face was covered in blood and his eyes – still that strangely unfamiliar hazel – were clouded and unfocused.

“Stay _down,_ Vector,” Theron warned, even as the Joiner lurched slowly and awkwardly to his feet.

_KILL HIM, CHILD. KILL HIM BEFORE –_

Behind Theron the woman let out a terrible scream, made all the worse by the fact that her Force-enhanced voice echoed inside his _head_ as well as in his ears. Theron turned, trying to keep Vector in his peripheral vision, aware that the Joiner was still trying to come after him but needing to see what was happening behind them.

Miranza had pulled herself to her feet and was yanking frantically on the various cords, tubes and wires that connected the woman to the throne. The woman’s screaming rose to a fevered pitch and the intense pressure inside Theron’s mind increased, bringing him to his knees, his hands clasped to his ears as if that could somehow block out the sounds.

_KILLYOUKILLYOUKILLYOU!!!_

Theron was completely defenseless, unable to do anything more than huddle on the ground, hands pressed to his head as the woman’s screams continued to pierce his mind. Vector – still caught up in the grips of whatever control the woman had over him – was likewise impeded by the shrill sounds, and although he tried to scrabble toward Theron, he kept stopping, trying to cover his own ears in an effort the silence the voice inside his head.

The woman’s body had wasted away over however long she had been strapped into her throne, and as Miranza wrenched the wires loose she tried to get up and fight the blonde agent off but she didn’t have the strength to stand much less to struggle. All she had was the power of the Force, and she continually battered at the three of them with it, screaming and shrieking and slamming into them with an intense hatred that burned like acid through their minds. Miranza’s eyes were glazing over and her face had gone deathly pale, but she climbed in behind the woman, pulling a length of tubing with her to wrap it around the woman’s neck and twist.

_STOP THIS, SWEET CHILD._ The false affection was back in that malevolent voice as the woman tried to turn her head to look at Miranza. She was still screaming inside Theron’s mind and he fought to climb back to a standing position but his world was starting to get dark and fuzzy. _COME HOME. LET ME FIX YOU, CHILD. I ONLY WANT TO HELP. I ONLY WANT TO LOVE YOU._

_“I’m not your fucking child!”_ Miranza screamed, giving the tubing a savage yank.

Force energy blasted out from the woman, sending all three of them flying backwards. Theron and Vector slammed into the wall behind them, falling together in a tangle of limbs, while Miranza went crashing into a bank of electrical equipment. The room went dark – full dark, every single light going out and leaving them in pitch-black nothingness – and the screaming stopped. For a moment the only thing Theron could hear was strangled gurgles coming from the woman as she fought to breathe. Then even those sounds faded, and Theron was left with a dull roaring in his ears.

A voice, filled with immense disappointment and sorrow, rippled across his mind in a faint whisper:

_you’ll be sorry when father gets home_

Then, silence.

The sudden absence of Force persuasion left Theron feeling bereft and empty, as if he’d been completely hollowed out. He was sprawled on the floor against the wall, alone once more inside his head, and he allowed himself a brief respite to search his thoughts and emotions for signs of tampering or contamination. He wasn’t sure he would recognize it even if he found it. He felt a staggering sense of loss that was not unlike the grief he had experienced when Master Zho had died, only in this case he knew it was a completely manufactured feeling, a result of the powerful Force compulsion that had been placed on the three of them.

It took a few seconds for Theron’s implants to compensate for the darkness, and he used that time to slowly pull himself to his feet. The impact with the wall (not to mention the struggle with Vector) had reawakened every ache and pain he had after the jolts he’d received the day before, and his jaw was beginning to throb in time with his heartbeats. He did a quick self-assessment, concluding that there were no injuries requiring immediate medical attention, before bending to check on Vector. The Joiner was unconscious, crumpled against the wall in an ungainly heap, and after checking for vital signs and serious injury Theron repositioned him to be more comfortable and to reduce the likelihood of him choking on the blood that was still dripping steadily from his nose. Theron didn’t think the nose was broken, thank goodness.

Staggering across the room Theron found Miranza in an unconscious heap of her own, huddled at the base of the terminal she had collided with. Like Vector she didn’t appear to have any life-threatening injuries although Theron discovered that the palms of her hands were badly cut up, and a quick glance at the apparatus attached to the woman – _the Sith?_ he wondered; whatever she'd been, she had obviously been a powerful Force-sensitive – confirmed that the wires Miranza had been yanking at were the likely cause. He didn’t have the necessary supplies to patch her up, but the wounds were minor and could wait until they were back at the safe house and had access to a proper medkit. As he had with Vector Theron adjusted Miranza’s positioning before straightening up and approaching the other woman.

At first he thought she was dead. She was slumped forward in her throne, motionless, her pale grey skin practically glowing to Theron’s implant-enhanced night-vision. Thick dark liquid dripped from the tubes that had connected her to the throne, splattering in viscous drops like sludge across the tiled floor, and he could smell the coppery tang that suggested it was blood – or something blood-like. As he moved closer the stench of her hit him: body odour and sickness, the kind of lingering reek common to sick rooms where invalids were left unattended and uncared for; the smell was so strong he could practically taste it, and his stomach rolled unpleasantly. How long had she been hidden away here, kept alive by machines and forgotten?

She shuddered, lifting her head, and when her eyes flew open she pinned her glittering grey gaze on Theron and he felt an intense wave of hatred roiling off of her. Her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to speak out loud but no sound came out.

_... kill you ..._

The voice that whispered inside his head was weak but Theron could practically feel the loathing in it, and as she glared up at him he was aware of her trying to pick at his mind, nagging little probes and darts that attempted to strip away his mental shielding and claw their way into his innermost thoughts. When her efforts proved unsuccessful – and once again Theron sent up a prayer of thanks for Master Zho’s training – she tried battering at him with the Force, sending powerful negative emotions against him. Theron could feel it – a mixture of hatred and self-loathing and disgust – but it felt alien to him and he knew that the emotions he felt were not his own. Behind him Miranza let out a small miserable sound, and Theron remembered that while he was shielded against the woman’s attacks both of his lovers had no such protection.

Theron drew his vibroknife from its sheath at his belt. _Time to end this._ Holding the woman’s head down to expose the back of her neck – the Force-fueled emotions battering against him intensified – Theron drove the blade into the base of her skull. Hot blood spilled out over his hands, as thick and sludge-like as the stuff that was already dribbling across the floor at his feet. The woman grunted, her voice screaming in Theron’s mind, and then went still.

The screaming stopped, along with the mental assault. Theron gave the knife a savage twist before pulling it out and wiping it off on the woman’s frayed tunic.

He felt a brief flutter, a whisper of something against his mental shields, and then the light went out in the hate-filled grey eyes at last.

O o O o O

“We can still feel her inside our heads.”

Vector’s voice, soft and precise, woke Theron out of the light doze he had drifted into. Gentle fingers carded through his hair; his head was resting in the Joiner’s lap and Vector had been petting him for the better part of an hour, running a soothing hand through his hair and over his face and neck as one might calm a frightened child or skittish animal. (Vector's other hand had been holding an icepack to his nose, and he had only just set it aside.) Theron lay on his back in the middle of the couch, his head in Vector’s lap, his legs sprawled across Miranza’s, the three of them huddled together far more closely than the space required. Miranza leaned against her husband, her bandaged hands resting lightly on Theron’s knee. Like Vector she had been stroking her hands over Theron, but when the Joiner spoke she went still and Theron could feel her tension under him.

Vector had apologized approximately thirty times for attacking Theron back at the brothel. The apologies were unnecessary, of course: at this point the three of them were so well-versed in mind-control and brainwashing that they could write a lecture on the subject and have it published in the _Journal of Personality and Galactic Psychology._ Theron accepted his apologies, of course, but he knew the Joiner still felt guilty about it – as if there had been anything he could have done to have prevented the woman from controlling him. If Theron, with his implants and training, had nearly succumbed, there was little Vector or Miranza could have done.

Theron glanced up at Vector, relieved to see his familiar all-black eyes restored. He hadn’t realized how normal those eyes seemed to him now – not until they had been replaced by Vector’s original human colouration. He didn’t know how the woman had been able to do it, but somehow she had temporarily disrupted the bond between Vector and the Oroboro Nest, and Theron could tell that this bothered the Joiner almost as much as the fact that he’d been forced to attack him.

“It’s a light touch,” Vector continued, brushing his thumb over the edge of the bruise he’d left on Theron’s jaw, “but we can still feel it. It feels …”

“Slimy,” Miranza said softly.

“Yes,” Vector agreed. “Slimy.”

Miranza’s hand, still resting on Theron’s knee, shifted slightly, and she ran her fingers up and down Theron’s leg. “I knew her, didn’t I? I _have_ been here before. That file you found – that really was me. This is real. This was all real.”

Vector shifted, bending down to kiss her forehead while still continuing to pet Theron. “Yes, we think so, beloved, and we are sorry for it.”

She drew in a shuddering breath, and Theron looked up at her, watching the conflicted emotions that played across her face. He knew she normally had much better control over her features and it touched him that she trusted him enough to let her see her turmoil, even as he hated the fact that her turmoil existed in the first place.

“I don’t remember any of this.” Her voice was still soft, and Theron could detect a shakiness to it, as if she was holding back sobs or gasps. “I’m trying to remember, but … it’s like there’s nothing there, and yet … up until now the blanks in my memories never bothered me. I noticed them, but they didn’t matter. It was just … That was just the way my memories were. That was normal for me.” She drew in a breath and this time when she exhaled it did come out as a sob. “How much of my childhood is like that? Was _anything_ real? And what … what did they _do_ to me?”

It occurred to Theron then that her time in the brothel might be only the tip of the iceberg. Had she – and the other girls who had been imprisoned there – merely served as prostitutes, or had the Empire put them to more insidious uses? Children and teenagers could easily get in to all sorts of places adults couldn’t, and children and teenagers who had been brainwashed into subservience – and then made to forget – could provide all sorts of espionage-related services. Information-gathering, theft, sabotage, assassination: no one would ever consider them as threats; they could get in, get the job done and be gone before anyone ever caught on. Then, plant those children among refugees, get them adopted or fostered in Republic space, and you’d have an army of agents at your disposal that no one would ever suspect, sleeper cells to be called upon and utilized before the enemy ever caught on to the compromise. Theron suspected there was a lot more going on than just an illicit underage prostitution ring – the Empire wasn’t likely to waste time and resources protecting a place like the brothel unless there was something else to it.

“Those other locations,” he said, thinking out loud, “the ones on Dromund Kaas and Ziost and elsewhere. Are they all the same thing, do you think? More brothels?”

“No.” Vector’s voice was firm although his touch remained gentle. “We know what you think of the Empire, Theron, but we cannot conceive of something like that brothel being permitted to function in the heart of Imperial space.”

“Then we need to check them out,” Theron said.

“We _can’t,_ Theron.” Miranza tightened her hand around his knee, the bandages making her clumsy. “It’s not safe for you on Dromund Kaas or Ziost.”

“I’ve done it before,” he began, but Vector shook his head.

“We cannot bring you into Imperial space without great risk to _all_ of us,” the Joiner said thoughtfully, “but there _were_ two other locations in Hutt space: one on Hutta and another on the edge, near Chalacta. We should investigate those places and see what we might uncover.”

“How?” Miranza asked, frowning. “We can’t leave Nar Shaddaa unless it’s to go back to Dromund Kaas. We know the Dark Council has eyes on us.”

“On our ship, at least, yes. We could hire a shuttle, or …”

Theron sat up, blinking.

“Guys,” he said, “I have a terrible idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. This chapter. I wrote it, scrapped it, re-wrote it, scrapped _that_ , lather, rinse, repeat over the course of the weekend and I'm still not happy with it - but it serves to get some plot out there and it bridges to the next part, so ... *shrugs helplessly*


	16. Chapter 16

It wasn’t a surprise that Ryshan Esselby was still on Nar Shaddaa. Where better for a smuggler, scoundrel and general ne’er-do-well to spend his time than on the Smuggler’s Moon? What _was_ something of a surprise was the fact that he was still accepting Theron’s calls, considering that the last time the two had spoken Theron had hung up on him and afterwards deleted every message he’d sent. Still, when Theron called to see if Ryshan would agree to meeting with him, Miranza and Vector at the Slippery Slopes cantina, the pilot seemed perfectly agreeable to the notion.

_This is a terrible idea,_ Theron thought for about the hundredth time as he sat waiting for Rysh. He pushed the thought away; good idea or bad idea, it was the only one he had. Ryshan had his own ship – kriff, he had his own _fleet_ of ships – and if anyone could travel between Hutt, Imperial and Republic space with relative impunity it would be a smuggler who made a habit of dodging blockades and port authorities. Rysh was an asshole, no mistake, but he was an asshole who was marginally Theron’s friend and while he certainly wasn’t the most trustworthy man in the galaxy (Rysh couldn’t even be considered the most trustworthy man in the room even if he was the only one there) his reputation as a smuggler was based on his loyalty to his employers. If he agreed to a contract, he fulfilled it. All Theron, Miranza and Vector needed to do would be to buy him – and the two Imperials were loaded. Theron was confident they could make the pilot a deal he wouldn’t refuse.

The Slippery Slopes was the neutral cantina on the Promenade; Theron had met up with Jonas Balkar – who ran an SIS operation on Nar Shaddaa – there a few times and knew it reasonably well. He had a bad history with cantinas and casinos and felt uncomfortably exposed, but the two Imperials were well aware of said history and kept close to him. The cantina was crowded and busy, with a Quenk jazz band playing on the stage and a boisterous group of young Imperial officers celebrating their shore leave off to one side. Theron found his gaze drawn to the Imps more than a few times, but none of them appeared to be paying him any attention (or rather, he was paid no more attention than any other attractive, well-dressed patron).

Fifteen minutes after their agreed-upon meeting time Ryshan showed up and flopped down into the empty chair at their table, helping himself to Theron’s drink. He wrinkled his nose when he took a sip and realized the whiskey had been heavily watered down.

“Ugh, that’s terrible,” he muttered, setting the drink back down on the table.

“You could try buying your own drinks next time,” Vector said in a bland tone of voice. He was wearing the same glasses he’d worn that first time at Club Vertica, hiding his strange all-black eyes to better enable him to blend in with the crowd. Theron had noticed more than a few people throwing admiring glances in the Joiner’s direction: Vector was a handsome man, but put him in a nice three-piece suit and he went from handsome to mouth-watering. (Of course Theron was willing to acknowledge that he _might_ be biased in that respect.)

“I could,” Ryshan acknowledged, unperturbed, “but where’s the fun in that?” He turned and looked pointedly at Theron. “So. I’m here. What did you want?”

“How free is your schedule for the next little while?” Theron asked, leaning back in his seat and folding his arms across his chest. “We might be interested in hiring you – and one of your ships – for some interplanetary travel.”

“Oh, really? I thought your friends here,” Ryshan stared at Miranza, “had their own ship. Fancy little Phantom-class bird, right?”

That _was_ right, but Theron didn’t know how Rysh would know that. The man must have had contacts in the Imperial spaceport. It made sense; Ryshan sold information as readily as anything else, and had likely gone digging the moment he saw Theron with the two Imperials. Especially after Theron had rather pointedly ditched him in favour of them.

“We want to hire yours,” Miranza said, with a smile that didn’t quite make it all the way up to her eyes. “And we’re willing to pay you exceptionally well for it.”

Rysh sat back in his seat, mimicking Theron’s posture as he looked between the two Imperials. His gaze lingered for a particularly long time on Miranza, enough so that Theron found himself starting to get uncomfortable even though Ryshan didn’t say or do anything inappropriate. After a moment the pilot smiled a crooked little grin and smoothed the tips of his fingers over his blond goatee.

“Exceptionally well, huh?” he mused, tapping his chin lightly. “I like the sound of that. Where we going, anyway?”

“Hutta, initially,” Vector answered, after exchanging glances with his wife.

Ryshan frowned. “What do you need me for? You could just catch a cloud-hopper for a distance that short. You don’t need to hire a ship, you need a shuttle.”

“Hutta, _initially,”_ Vector repeated meaningfully. “With more planets to follow, depending on the results of the first one.”

“Huh. All right.” Rysh looked thoughtful, and Theron could practically hear cash register noises going off inside the man’s head. “And when you’re on Hutta – and these _other_ mysterious planets – would you be needing me to do anything?” He gave Miranza another long, lingering look, and this time there was no mistaking his expression for anything other than the blatantly sexual. “Any _other_ services I might be able to provide you?”

“None,” Miranza said, tone flat. “You can stay on board your ship for all we care.”

The pilot affected a pout. “Well, gosh, that just sounds boring, doesn’t it? I guess we’ll play it by ear.”

“And your price?” Theron said pointedly.

Ryshan named a price. It was beyond exorbitant – it was skyway robbery, and all three of them pinned him with nasty looks.

“For that much we could buy another ship and pilot it ourselves,” retorted Theron.

“Yeah, but then you’d miss out on the delight that is me,” replied Ryshan with a broad smile. Then he sighed, pouting again. “Fine. Half that.”

“A _quarter_ of that,” countered Miranza.

The pilot looked at her, then rested his elbow on the table and leaned towards her. “A third of that, plus a blowjob from you.”

Quick as a flash Vector was on his feet and gripping Ryshan by the front of his green leatheris jacket, yanking him forward across the table. Miranza’s wineglass toppled over, dribbling the last of her red wine out and onto the floor, and she quickly caught the glass before it, too, could hit the carpet. Theron’s gaze was torn between Ryshan and Vector – but mostly his eyes were on Vector. He had seen the Joiner angry before, but never with such a possessive, fierce heat. He didn’t know if this had anything to do with their earlier revelations regarding Miranza’s childhood or if Vector simply couldn’t stand the pilot, but either way Vector looked _furious._ Ryshan, for his part, seemed to be aware that he had crossed a line, but he managed to keep a mildly amused expression on his face, as if this whole thing was simply hilarious to him.

Theron moved to stand up, noticing that people were starting to pay attention to them, but Miranza stood before he could and put her hand on Vector’s arm.

“A fifth of that,” she said, gaze fixed on Ryshan’s face, “plus a blowjob from me. I’m worth way more than that and you _know_ it.”

_“Miranza,”_ Vector said heatedly, just as Ryshan said “It’s a deal.”

Miranza gently uncurled Vector’s fingers from where they had been latched onto Rysh’s jacket, drawing her husband’s hand away. “It’s fine, Vector.” She turned to Ryshan, arching an eyebrow in invitation. “Did you want your payment now, or were you planning on spending it all later?”

Ryshan’s cheeks flushed; Theron stared at him, amazed. He didn’t think he’d ever seen the man look embarrassed before, but he certainly looked it now. Theron hadn’t thought it possible, and he wondered if the pilot hadn’t actually expected Miranza to accept his terms, or if he’d just thrown the payment out as a lark to see what would happen. Miranza’s reaction was typically pragmatic, and Theron was well aware that she used sex and sexual manipulation to get what she wanted – stars, he did the same kriffing thing, it was what they were trained to do. Vector’s response, on the other hand, felt completely out of character for the Joiner; Theron had never seen him react with such possessiveness. Even now, as his wife pulled his hand away from Ryshan’s jacket, Vector looked ready to haul back and punch the pilot, and his jaw was set in a hard line. The bruising around the bridge of his nose and under his pitch-black eyes only made him look more sinister.

Then Ryshan slowly relaxed, and his embarrassment faded, replaced with a small smirk and a glint in his dark green eyes.

“Now sounds great to me, gorgeous,” he replied. He held his hand out to her. “Let’s go someplace private.”

With one last look at Vector Miranza accepted Ryshan’s hand, letting him lead her away from their table. Before they got more than a handful of steps away Vector called out to his wife.

“Don’t kill him, Miranza. We still need him.”

Miranza paused, cocking her head to one side. “Technically speaking, we only need his ship. Theron can pilot it for us.”

“We need his security clearances and smuggling routes, too,” Vector reminded her, although Theron was fairly certain Miranza already knew that and was just messing with Ryshan. At least he hoped that was the case and that she wasn’t just casually bandying around the idea of murdering the man and stealing his ship. Theron found that he wasn’t so much bothered by the thought of Ryshan’s death as he was by how callously and nonchalantly Miranza and Vector were discussing it – like this was just another Taungsday night for them.

“Fine.” Miranza shrugged, rolling her eyes. “I won’t kill him.”

Ryshan’s eyes darted between the couple as he tried to determine whether or not they were joking. The fact that Vector still seemed angry – but was nonetheless championing the cause of not murdering him – gave him significant pause. After a moment Miranza gave his hand an impatient tug and his smug smirk settled back into place.

As the two of them walked away Theron found himself regarding Vector closely. The Joiner sank back down into his chair without any of his usual grace and dropped his head into his hands. Theron sat down beside him, taking a sip from his drink more as an excuse for something to do than out of any genuine interest in the watered-down alcohol.

“It’s her choice,” Theron said quietly, setting his tumbler back on the table.

Vector looked up at him, faintly puzzled. “Yes, of course it is.”

Theron leaned back against his chair, hooking one arm around the backrest. His shirt-sleeve rode up a bit, revealing the crisp white bandages around his wrist, and he rubbed his other hand over the bruise on his jaw. He felt like the survivor of some sort of disaster – and perhaps that was as fitting a description as anything else. The past few days had been nothing but one spacewreck after another and it left him feeling exhausted and emotionally wrecked. This latest development with Ryshan was just one more weight on an already overly-burdened spirit.

His fault, for bringing Ryshan into this. Theron held few illusions about what sort of person the pilot was, and his own tangled relationship with the man certainly did little to help. Rysh had probably tossed out the suggestion of a blowjob from Miranza simply because he found it amusing and wanted to fuck with them, but Vector’s angry response practically guaranteed the pilot would continue to push the issue in order to continue getting a rise out of the Joiner. Of course, Theron had confidence that Miranza herself would put Ryshan in his place, and that she had agreed to his terms now because it was the easiest and fastest way to get his compliance. She could hold out hope of further sexual payment to keep the man in line.

This would all be easier if they could just take the _Mercurial._ Miranza’s X-70B Phantom was obviously an Imperial spaceship, however, reserved almost exclusively for the use of Intelligence operatives, and while it would typically be considered a good ship for avoiding detection both Miranza and Vector seemed confident that it was being tracked. Between the three of them Theron had little doubt they could find and disable or remove all of the tracking devices on board the ship, but that would all but prove they were up to something suspicious and he wouldn’t be surprised if Sith Intelligence had spies at Mezenti spaceport keeping an eye on the _Mercurial,_ waiting to report back should the Phantom leave port. And if they were spotted leaving with Theron in tow, the situation would only get worse for them.

They could hire a private shuttle, but there was no way of knowing who their pilot answered to or who they would report back to. If the pilot was innocent – for example, someone working for the Republic – Theron didn’t want to risk them getting hurt or killed. If the pilot worked for the Empire (or even for the Hutts) then it would be no better than taking the _Mercurial:_ it would get back to Sith Intelligence and the Dark Council that Miranza and Vector were leaving Nar Shaddaa and not heading back to Dromund Kaas to turn in their assignment, and again there was the risk that Theron would be brought up, solidifying concerns that the two Imperials were compromised by their relationship with him. Ryshan was an asshole, but in this case he was the devil Theron knew, and if Miranza felt comfortable handling him then Theron was willing to accept that it was her choice to make.

“She’s going to eat him alive,” Vector said after the silence had stretched out between them for a few uncomfortable minutes. He gave Theron a wry smirk, a faint spark of good humour returning to his face. “And not in the way he is expecting her to. We do hope you’re not terribly attached.”

“She’s not really going to kill him, is she?” Theron wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Rysh was an asshole, but if being an asshole was an acceptable reason for murdering someone there would be far fewer assholes in the galaxy.

“Likely not, no.” Vector folded his arms across his chest, considering. “She’ll sleep with him, and by the time she’s done he’ll be wrapped around her little finger.”

“Sleep with him? He just wanted –”

“We know what he wanted, Theron. Knowing our wife, however, she’ll use his lechery to her advantage. It’s a weakness she can exploit. Otherwise she would never have agreed to his terms.”

Theron stared at the Joiner, dumbfounded. “And you’re just … okay with this?”

Vector gave him a curious glance. “Of course. As you said, it’s her choice.”

_This time,_ Theron thought, flashing back to the brothel and the file he’d discovered. Eleven-year-old EV1750’s face surfaced in his memories, and he wondered how many times she’d had this choice taken from her. He gave himself a little shake. It wasn’t his job or his responsibility to save Miranza, and he did her a disservice by thinking it was. She wasn't a princess or a child in need of rescue; she was a grown woman and a capable, remarkably talented and ruthless spy. She wasn’t EV1750 any more, and he had to trust that she knew what she wanted and what she was comfortable with. Besides, this was hardly the first time she’d made this choice – and, under similar circumstances, Theron knew he would do the same. Seduction was just another tool in the spy’s arsenal.

The Imperial officers were stumbling out amidst a lot of good-natured shoving and laughing as Miranza and Ryshan returned, Miranza looking cool and unruffled as always while Rysh had a smug, satisfied expression on his face. Theron resisted the urge to punch him as they came and rejoined him and Vector.

Ryshan gave Miranza a long, lingering look that served to confirm Vector’s earlier statements about what his wife intended to accomplish. Theron didn’t know whether or not the two of them had actually had sex, but they had certainly been gone long enough for that, and Rysh had the pleased air of a man who’d gotten more than he’d asked for. Behind that satisfaction Theron could see the hunger for more. He knew exactly what that was like: it didn’t matter how recently or frequently he was able to be intimate with the two Imperials, he always came away from the experience wanting more. They were like a drug, and from the looks of things Ryshan was hooked.

“All right,” Ryshan said, suddenly all business. “How soon did you want to leave?”

O o O o O

Theron had always assumed Ryshan worked out of Coruscant, since that was primarily the planet the two of them ran into each other the most. To his surprise, however, he discovered that the freighter captain’s operation was based out of Nar Shaddaa, and that was where he kept the bulk of his fleet – because Rysh didn’t just have the one ship, he had an entire fleet of ships at his disposal. For the short trip to Nal Hutta they took one of the shuttles rather than the larger spaceships Ryshan had docked, and Rysh piloted on his own. Theron knew he had a large crew but for something like this the others weren’t necessary, which was just as well, because Theron didn't know the other members of Ryshan's crew and therefore couldn't trust them.

The journey from Nar Shaddaa to Hutta was short and quiet. Theron sat up in the cockpit with Ryshan, working on slicing some of the intel he had managed to secure from the back room at the brothel while the smuggler piloted the shuttle. Miranza and Vector kept to the rear of the shuttle, sitting together in companionable silence. Since leaving the Smuggler’s Moon Ryshan had become uncharacteristically polite to Vector. Theron didn’t know if it was because Rysh was actually a professional and now that the two Imperials were his customers he felt the need to treat them appropriately, or that the pilot had realized if he wanted another shot at Miranza he would need to show her husband some respect, or if it was simply a case of Ryshan coming to the conclusion that the Joiner could easily take him apart with his bare hands if he continued being his usual asshole self. Whatever the cause was for Ryshan’s attitude adjustment, Theron was grateful for it. Vector remained alert and aloof around Rysh, but his earlier hostility seemed to have mellowed somewhat. Miranza’s behaviour towards the pilot bordered on flirtatious and suggestive, just enough to confirm Vector’s earlier comments about her attempting to manipulate the man through seduction. It was almost comically effective.

Ryshan docked his shuttle at one of the less-used spaceports, disembarking briefly to hand over a couple of credit sticks to a Gamorrean dockworker before returning to his ship. The spaceport – intended for use by freighters and cargo-haulers rather than private or public transit – was too far away from any of the major cities on Hutta to be particularly busy and consequently the only cantina held little interest for the pilot. Theron suspected it was more likely Rysh had already screwed, fought or gambled with everyone at the local cantina and probably wasn’t welcome back, but he kept that thought to himself. Rysh staying on board the shuttle made it less likely he’d get into trouble, which saved the three of them from having to pull together credits to bail him out (or patch him up). Rysh had no desire to accompany the three of them in their investigation (something else for Theron to be grateful for: the pilot wouldn’t be around to antagonize Vector or aggressively flirt with Miranza and him) and instead announced his plans to spend his free time napping, which was probably Ryshan’s remarkably discreet way of saying he planned on watching pornographic holo-vids and drinking. Theron just hoped he’d be sober enough to fly them off-world once they were done checking out the Hutta location.

Theron, Miranza and Vector left the spaceport, driving a rented speeder towards the coordinates Theron had unlocked on the datapad. Hutta was hot and muggy and the swampy air smelled acrid and rotten, and even putting the pedal to the metal on the speeder wasn’t enough to cool them down or get rid of the stench. The datapad coordinates led to a rural area far outside any cities, and so while Ryshan had docked them at the closest possible spaceport it was still a lengthy ride over dirt roads and across swamp. The closer they got the more they could smell the heavy pollution in the Hutta air, and that scent took on a thick, smoky element that made Theron wish he’d thought to bring a rebreather or a gas mask of some sort.

As they got closer the reason for the excessive smoke became apparent, as in the distance, just beyond a small Evocii village, there was the burned-out husk of what used to be a rather large building.

“Fifty credits says that’s the place we were going to investigate,” Theron said. Vector slowed the speeder as they entered the village outskirts.

“No bet,” said Miranza, sounding discouraged. She held the datapad on her lap, and Theron could see a flashing marker indicating their current location: the marker was almost exactly over the coordinates she had inputted. “This is the place.”

“Someone is covering their tracks,” Vector commented, parking the speeder beside a rough wooden fence.

The Evocii village was tiny – and largely deserted. A couple of small children poked at something in a puddle – and as Theron approached them, he couldn’t help but notice that the puddle wasn’t water, but some kind of oily run-off from the many factories that dotted the planet’s surface – and a hollow-eyed woman popped her head out of the door of one of the huts, staring blankly at the three approaching humans. As they grew closer Theron realized he couldn’t see any men and very few young women: just prepubescent children and women well past their child-bearing years.

“Do any of you speak Evocii?” Theron asked, as the woman who had stuck her head out to look at them left her hut and began walking in their direction. Miranza and Vector both shook their heads; hopefully this woman spoke Galactic Basic or Huttese. As she got closer he put on his brightest, most charming smile and held out his hand. “Hi there!”

“You come for the auction? You come too late,” the woman said, her Basic stilted and heavily accented but still perfectly comprehensible. She blinked down at his hand, staring at him until he awkwardly let it fall to his side.

Theron exchanged glances with Miranza and Vector. “The … auction?”

The Evocii woman gestured towards the smouldering husk just beyond the village borders. “Slave auction. Raiders come, lock doors, burn everything.” Her shoulders drooped. “Burn everyone.”

“You mean there were people inside when that happened?” Vector asked, horrified.

The woman nodded and motioned at the village around her. “Workers rounded up. All dead. Men refuse to go, raiders shot.”

“You’re saying the raiders rounded up everyone who worked at the … the auction, locked them inside the building, and set fire to the place?” Miranza’s mouth was set in a grim line, her blue eyes flashing with anger. The woman nodded again. “When did this happen?”

Theron looked towards the smouldering wreckage and the wisps of black smoke still curling skywards. The fire was still burning, although it looked like it was mostly out. It couldn’t have happened all that long ago – even if there hadn’t been anyone around to put the fire out, it hadn’t spread beyond the ruined auction house (if that’s what the blackened beams and charred hunks of duracrete used to be) and seemed more or less under control at this point. He wasn’t sure if it was luck or intentional that the Evocii village had been spared. Not that there was much of the village left; he suspected the dead workers had likely all been residents, and the only people left were the ones who were either too young or too old to work there.

The woman shrugged, looking back at the auction house. Her hands twisted in the rough fabric of her tunic, grief and hardship etched in her plain face. “Days ago.”

“What can you tell us about the raiders?” Miranza asked. “Were they the Hutts’ men, or did they work for someone else? Mercenaries, maybe?”

By the blank look on the woman’s face Theron could tell she either didn’t know what Miranza was asking, or didn’t understand the words the blonde was using. He attempted another tack, asking, “Could you describe what the raiders were wearing? Heavy armour? Did it all match, or was it found stuff?”

“Look like you,” the woman answered, shrugging again. Theron looked down at himself; he was wearing plain spacers’ leathers, the same kind of nondescript light armour favoured by pretty much any smuggler, freighter captain or pirate across the galaxy. Vector and Miranza were dressed similarly, all three of them preferring the mobility afforded by lighter gear rather than the protection of heavy plasteel armour. They had dressed to blend in, but also for practicality.

“Madam.” The woman’s gaze snapped to Vector, a look of surprise on her face at his polite tone. “You said this was an auction? What sorts of … slaves … were auctioned here?”

“Slaves,” the woman said. She shifted uncomfortably. “Not Evocii. Not … not like you.”

“Not human?” Vector clarified. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses again, so there was no way the woman could know he was a Joiner.

She shook her head, then held one hand up at about waist-height. “No Evocii, but all kinds other. But little. Littler.”

“Children,” said Theron, his horrified gaze suddenly drawn back towards the burning building. _Stars above, had there been children in there?_

The woman nodded again, although it wasn’t clear whether she understood the word or was simply nodding for the sake of politeness. “No slaves. Last auction was … many days. Many, _many_ days. Work dries up, families starve. Raiders come, we think is auction, we think is have work.” She shook her head. “No work, is _death.”_

Theron tried to piece together the woman’s awkward speech. If he understood correctly, it had been quite some time since this auction site had been used – although it was impossible to tell if by ‘many, many days’ she meant weeks, months, or even years. But if the work had dried up and families were starving, it stood to reason it had been more than just a few weeks or months; no wonder it had been so easy to round everyone up: the Evocii had been expecting the raiders were there to resume work and get the slave auction operating again. Instead they had killed everyone connected to the auction site and burned the evidence to the ground. It was as Vector had said: someone was covering their tracks.

A guilty twinge coursed through Theron at this revelation. If someone was covering up, it was because he, Miranza and Vector had been poking their noses into this. If he had just walked away – back on Coruscant, after Joxer’s death, after the attempt on his life – none of this would be happening. The Evocii in this village would still be alive (alive and dying slowly from neglect and poverty, but still: not burned to death in a locked warehouse in the middle of a Huttese swamp). This was _his_ fault.

Miranza caught his eye and shot him a pointed look, shaking her head. He didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know what she was thinking. _Don’t be an idiot, Theron._

“Is anyone left who worked there?” she asked, before Theron could fall into a guilty downward spiral.

“No.” The woman shook her head, then seemed to pause, considering. When she spoke, it was hesitant. “No, is yes. Gran was there, time and time ago. But she …” She tapped her head, twirling one finger next to her temple in the universal gesture for someone with a few screws loose. “Can talk with.”

Before the three of them could answer her the woman took off towards one of the huts on the outer edge of the village, pausing briefly to be certain they were following her. Theron exchanged shrugs with Vector and Miranza; even if this woman ‘Gran’ was completely off her rocker, she might still have useful intelligence for them. A name, a memory, a location: anything would be better than what they had now.

Their escort led them towards the hut, stopping long enough to knock on the frame of the door before heading inside. The inside of the hut was small and cluttered, and an exceptionally elderly and frail-looking Evocii woman sat in a rocking chair in front of a fire-pit, looking up as they entered. The two women exchanged words in Evocii, and the first woman motioned for the three humans to come closer. There wasn’t a lot of room, so Miranza sat on a rickety-looking stool beside the old woman while Vector stood a few feet away in front of a sink overflowing with dishes. Theron remained by the door, moving out of the way to allow the first woman to leave.

The elderly Evocii looked up at them, blinking rheumy eyes. “Sheergat say you have questions? You ask about auction?”

“Yes, that’s right.” It was Miranza’s turn to switch on the charm, and she did so effortlessly, smiling at the old woman. The woman leaned forward, running crabbed fingers through Miranza’s curls. Miranza stiffened slightly but didn’t pull away, letting Gran stroke her blonde locks. “Can you help us, old mother?”

“Not your mother, sweet child,” Gran replied, and Theron’s tension ratcheted up several notches. Miranza, for her part, remained still, her bright-eyed expression firmly fixed in place. The Evocii didn’t appear to notice. “But will help, if can. Ask.”

“Thank you, old mother.” Miranza bowed her head deferentially. “Can you tell us how long this auction has been here?”

“Oh, years and years and years,” said the elderly Evocii, still petting her. “Before you were born. Before my eldest was born.” Gran’s face darkened, sorrow tightening her features. “We were young. Long ago.”

“You were here when it opened?”

“Oh, yes.” The old woman nodded emphatically, smiling, her earlier sorrow abruptly forgotten as she remembered a happier time. “Good days. Good for Evocii, good for village. Much work, much trade.” She pointed towards herself. “Work as …” She frowned, struggling to find the word, then held her arms up in front of herself and made a rocking motion as if soothing an infant to sleep. “Work with littles. The little-littles.”

“Babies?” Vector suggested quietly. He had started emptying the sink out, piling dirty dishes on one side of the counter before filling the sink with soapy water, gazing idly out the window at the swamps beyond the village.

“Yes, babies!” Gran gave Miranza a toothless smile, pleased at being understood. “Good work, but hard. Loved the littles, but they left. Always left. Gone to good homes.”

_Sold,_ Theron thought, shaking his head as he watched the Joiner begin washing the dishes. He moved towards the sink, picking up the least filthy-looking towel he could find and starting to dry the dishes Vector had cleaned. He wondered if one of the dead Evocii had been responsible for taking care of this elderly woman, and if their death was the reason her hut was such a mess. She was clearly too old and infirm to properly care for herself, but she didn't yet have the appearance of neglect that would suggest it had been a long time since anyone had last checked in on her.

Sold, not ‘gone to good homes.’ In all likelihood the children Gran had taken care of had been purchased at the slave auction – and he had a sneaking suspicion some of them had ended up at the brothel on Nar Shaddaa. He cast a glance in Miranza’s direction, wondering if perhaps Gran had once cared for a pale-skinned human baby with soft blonde curls.

Theron opened his mouth to ask when Vector suddenly stiffened beside him.

_“Get down!”_ Vector shouted, grabbing Theron by the arm and shoving him to the ground.

There was a loud crack from somewhere outside the hut. Theron watched in horror as bright red blood splashed across Miranza’s stunned face and Gran slumped forward in her rocking chair, dead.


	17. Chapter 17

Theron hit the floor just as blaster fire tore through the open window. Dishes exploded in a shower of ceramic and glass, sending shards raining down over him and Vector. Outside the hut Theron could hear screaming. Miranza ducked off the stool, hunching forward to avoid being shot at, and dragged Gran down with her. Theron could tell that it hadn’t yet struck the blonde agent that Gran was dead, and he saw the moment Miranza registered the exit wound that had all but destroyed the elderly Evocii woman’s face. Miranza’s face fell, an expression of guilt and pain crossing her features before she brought herself back under control again. Her lips curled in an angry snarl and she duck-walked towards the two men, a pair of holdout blasters appearing in her hands as if by magic.

Vector reached down to something at his waist and a blue dome sparked to life as his shield generator kicked in. He brought his other hand up, revealing a metal tube no longer than Theron’s forearm; Vector gave the tube a swift flick and his collapsible staff sprang free. The Joiner normally favoured an electrostaff, but the collapsible staff was easier to conceal and just as lethal in his hands.

“How many of them are there?” Miranza asked, ducking inside the cover that Vector’s shield provided. The shield generator was not intended for three people and as a result they needed to stay close together, but it was powerful enough to provide shelter for them all as bits of broken pottery and chips of wood went flying everywhere.

The Joiner cocked his head to one side, an intense look on his face. His expression cleared and the corners of his mouth twisted upwards in a harsh parody of a smile. “Five.”

“That’s almost insulting,” his wife murmured, and then as if that was their signal the two Imperials suddenly launched into action and all Theron could do was follow along behind and hope not to get shot.

Vector took the lead, the staff spinning between his hands with such alacrity it was a glinting silver blur. Theron saw blaster bolts dancing off the metal pole; what Vector couldn’t deflect, his shield negated, and he stormed out the door with Miranza at his back, holdout blasters firing in the direction of the gunfire.

Keeping low, Theron ran in their wake before diving for cover behind the first thing he saw, which happened to be a wooden watering trough. He got off a few shots of his own with his blaster pistol before having to duck behind the trough, narrowly avoiding return fire. As he crouched he watched in open admiration as Miranza and Vector took on their enemies. Protected behind Vector’s shield and the additional shelter provided by his body, Miranza was able to fire off a few shots, taking down one of the gunmen almost immediately with a blaster bolt to the head. Another man tried to close with them but was easily beaten back by Vector, who lashed out with rapid blows of his staff. Watching the two Imperials in action was like witnessing a uniquely violent dance, one that had been choreographed and practiced until working in tandem simply came as second nature to the pair. Had he not been under fire himself Theron would have been willing to sit back and observe them forever.

Theron quickly scanned the village and was relieved to see that the children he’d noticed earlier seemed to have run for cover. He heard footsteps behind him and turned in time to avoid a booted foot to the face. He dodged, bringing his pistol up to shoot his would-be assailant in the chest. The man staggered back, his heavy armour taking the brunt of the point-blank hit, and Theron swept his leg out, knocking the man’s feet out from under him. He landed hard on his back and Theron was able to finish him off with a well-placed shot just under the chin.

Miranza had been right: five attackers _was_ insulting. The fight was over almost before it had begun, and when Theron stood up, brushing mud off his pants, the two Imperials had one of the gunmen on his back on the ground and were standing over him. The remaining four were dead.

Vector pinned the man down, his foot resting on the gunman’s chest, one end of his staff dug into the mud beside the man’s head. At some point during the fight the Joiner’s dark glasses had gone missing, and his all-black eyes were on display, glittering with simmering rage. Across the way, holdout blasters already tucked back into whatever hiding place she’d retrieved them from, Miranza calmly searched the bodies for identification before coming up empty-handed. Theron moved to stand beside Vector, glaring down at the lone surviving gunman.

“Who sent you?” Theron demanded just as Miranza came and joined them. “What were your orders?”

The man scowled up at Theron, snarling, “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

Miranza crouched beside him and smiled, Gran’s blood on her face lending her a distinctly sinister air. “Do you know who I am?” she asked him, her tone conversational, her distinctly posh Imperial accent plain as day. “I’m an Imperial Intelligence operative. I learned interrogation techniques before I learned to read. Do you have any _idea_ of the things I can do to make you talk?”

Theron bit back the urge to intercede, even though he wasn’t entirely certain Miranza was bluffing and he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of letting her follow through on her veiled promises of torture. He would have guessed that after everything she had been through in the past year Miranza wouldn’t be so quick to resort to such threats and he sincerely hoped it was just a ruse on her part, but he couldn't tell. The gunman _definitely_ didn’t think she was bluffing, however, and his face paled rather dramatically. Either he was far more squeamish than Theron would have expected for a hired hitman, or he was well-versed in the kinds of nasty shit Sith Intelligence was capable of. Theron was betting on the latter.

The man struggled, desperate to get up and away from them, but Vector pressed down on his chest and he went still, panting and staring up at Miranza. At the suggestion of ‘interrogation techniques’ the Joiner had gone perfectly motionless, his head tilted towards his wife, but he made no comment and did nothing to interfere. Theron had the impression that Vector was paying much more attention to Miranza than to the man on the ground, and it occurred to him that the Joiner had the same concerns regarding her that Theron had.

“They’ll kill me,” the gunman said at last, oblivious to Theron’s thoughts.

“We’re here now,” Miranza purred, sweet voice dripping with venom. “What do you think _we’re_ going to do to you?”

“Look!” The man raised his hands a little bit as if warding off further attacks. “We were just told to keep an eye on the spaceport and on this village, and if anyone showed up here we were under orders to kill everyone. It was nothing personal! If I’d’a known we were coming after spooks I woulda turned the job down, you can believe it!”

“The spaceport?” Theron repeated, sudden worry spiking through him. _Ryshan._ Rysh was alone on his shuttle, knowing him probably passed out drunk and defenseless. Theron had no idea how good the security was on the shuttle – it wasn’t one of Ryshan’s preferred spaceships so it likely didn’t possess the same defenses as the other ships in his fleet – but it was a safe bet that spaceport security was practically non-existent … or had been tipped off to make themselves scarce. They needed to get back and make sure the smuggler hadn’t come under attack. Rysh was a jerk, but he wouldn’t be there if it hadn’t been for Theron and that made his safety Theron’s responsibility.

“Who hired you?” Miranza demanded, picking up on Theron’s urgency and trying to speed things along.

“I don’t know,” the man groaned. He craned his neck around, lifting his head slightly to search for the other gunmen before pointing at the first man Miranza had killed. _“He_ arranged everything!”

That was convenient - or inconvenient, as the case may be. The only person who could tell them who had hired the gunmen, and he just so happened to be the first assailant killed in the fight? Theron wondered if the the gunman had picked the dead man at random, or if he was actually telling the truth. Either way, the man on the ground was so terrified of Miranza (or at least the threats of being subjected to a full interrogation at the hands of Sith Intelligence) he was close to wetting himself; there was little chance he was lying to the three of them.

“What else can you tell me?”

“N-nothing!” the man stammered, then his eyes widened as he realized that was practically the worst thing he could have said. He didn’t have long to nurse his regrets, however: quick as a flash Miranza drew her holdout blaster again and shot him in the eye, killing him instantly. Vector had moved to try and intercept her, but she was too fast; the man was dead before the Joiner had a chance to even open his mouth to protest. As the gunman went still Vector gave his wife a long, assessing glance, his brows drawn together in an unmistakable expression of concern. He said nothing, though, and Miranza was already moving on to the next target.

“We need to get back to the shuttle,” Miranza said, tucking her blaster back in its hiding spot and turning in the direction of the spaceport as if she could see it from where they were. She couldn't, of course, but Theron had the sense she was trying anyway. She started walking towards their parked speeder.

Vector shook his head, casting his dark gaze around the village. “We ought to check for survivors, see what aid we can –”

“Vector,” his wife snapped, pausing mid-step to turn and look at him, “We don’t have time for this.”

He looked at her for a moment, cocking his head to one side, assessing her. When he spoke his voice was very quiet and very calm. “Sometimes we feel as though we do not know you at all, beloved.” From the way he spoke, Theron suspected Vector was referring to more than just Miranza’s refusal to assist with the villagers. The Joiner turned and walked purposefully towards the hut that the Evocii woman, Sheergat, had first come out of.

Theron had to turn his face away from the sight of Miranza’s stricken expression, and he was briefly torn on whether he should follow Vector and search for survivors, or if he should race back to the spaceport to make sure Ryshan wasn’t under attack. In the end his better angels won out: whether or not Rysh was safe, the pilot was a grown man and could, in theory, take care of himself – whereas the majority of those living in the Evocii village were children. He hated leaving his friend in the lurch like this, but Theron wasn’t the sort of man who was comfortable putting children at risk. He followed Vector.

Searching the village took longer than Theron would have liked, but he was relieved to discover the Evocii children all safe and sound in their various huts and hidey-holes. Sheergat, likewise, was still alive, and once he and Vector were able to convince her to leave the sanctity of her own hut she organized a quick clean-up of the village. The dead men were all stripped down to their skivvies, their armour, weapons and anything else of value dumped in a pile to be searched through later, and their bodies then dragged into the smouldering ruins of the auction house. Sheergat doused the corpses in flammable liquid and set them on fire, effectively disposing of the evidence of the attack. Her brusque efficiently suggested to Theron that this was something she had dealt with before, and he wondered how often the Evocii village had come under fire while the auction house was still functional.

Of the villagers, only the elderly woman had been killed, and Sheergat assured Vector and Theron that the Evocii would honour Gran’s death with their own private celebrations. Once everyone’s safety was assured and the bodies were cleaned up it was made very clear to them that they were no longer welcome in the village. Theron found it hard to argue the point, considering that if the three of them had never come to the Evocii village, Gran would still be alive. It was difficult not to blame himself for the old woman’s death when it had been so plainly spelled out for him by the dead gunman: _“If anyone showed up here we were under orders to kill everyone.”_ He wished he had thought to ask how long the gunmen had been waiting, and whether or not they had known what they were covering up.

Not for the first time Theron found himself wondering what the kriff was going on.

O o O o O

The ride back to the spaceport was tense. Vector drove again, once more gunning the speeder and racing at a breakneck speed over the swamps and fields, hurrying to get back to the shuttle before Ryshan could be killed. Miranza sat on the back bench, using some of the sterile wipes from one of their medkits to try and clean the worst of Gran’s blood off her face and hands. Theron sat up front with the Joiner and pretended he didn’t notice the friction between the two Imperials. It was obvious Vector and Miranza were angry with each other – Vector for his wife’s push to return to the spaceport instead of helping the villagers, and Miranza for him calling her out on it – but Theron had no clue what he was supposed to do, or if he was even expected to involve himself at all. He had very little personal experience when it came to arguments between significant others, and he didn’t have enough faith in his own relationship with the two of them to feel comfortable getting involved. What if he said or did something to make things worse? Whose side was he supposed to be on, or was he supposed to stay neutral? How did people navigate this shit in their daily lives?

Theron also wasn’t entirely sure what the fight had even been about. Was Vector honestly all that surprised that Miranza would choose to hurry back to the spaceport to check on Ryshan rather than stay and help the villagers? She was, at times, a ruthlessly pragmatic woman, and Ryshan was an asset of known value – he was their pilot, and if he was under attack then likely so was their ship and their way off-planet. Conversely, the villagers held little strategic value, at least from a coldly practical Intelligence point of view – and helping people was not something Miranza was hardwired to do. That she _chose_ to do it from time to time did not mean she would always make that decision, especially not when there were other factors at play.

Theron suspected there was more going on between the two Imperials than what was immediately obvious to him, and it was safe to say that whatever the issue was, it had something to do with the recent revelations about Miranza’s past. Theron regretted his own earlier conversation with Vector, when he had brought up his concerns regarding Miranza’s motivations and agency. He couldn’t help but feel that those concerns were rearing their ugly head with Vector now, and he worried that airing his concerns had somehow undermined the trust Vector had in his wife.

Arriving at the spaceport Theron fully expected to see the place swarming with armed mercenaries and the shuttle under lockdown. Instead to his complete surprise everything was quiet, and Ryshan came out to meet the three of them as they approached his shuttle. He looked like he’d just come from a sound sleep: he had stripped down to a pair of soft sleep pants that hung low about his lean hips, his dirty blond hair was sticking straight up on one side and flattened on the other, and Theron was pretty sure he could see lines on his face left by his pillow. Ryshan blinked at the three of them in confusion, then took one look at Miranza – who in spite of her best efforts still had blood on her face – and ushered the three of them onto the ship.

“What the kriff happened to you guys?” he asked, as Miranza hurried on board in search of the sonic shower. The shuttle wasn’t as well-equipped as a larger spaceship would have been, but it did at least have a ‘fresher with a shower, even if it was just a sonic shower built into a space so tight you could barely move to clean yourself properly.

“Ambush,” Theron answered with a small shrug, not wanting to rehash the whole scenario. He looked around curiously, still half expecting armed goons to jump out at them, but the shuttle and spaceport both appeared empty - and not in a 'we're about to be ambushed by hidden assailants' kind of way. “You’re okay? Nothing happened while we were gone?”

Rysh continued to look confused. “No? Was something supposed to happen? Did I miss something?”

“No.” Theron sighed, feeling relief wash over him at the realization that Ryshan and the shuttle didn’t appear to have been targeted. He was under no illusions that their unknown enemy wasn’t keeping an eye on the shuttle, however, and the sooner they were on their way the better. The longer they stayed at the spaceport, the more likely it was they would come under attack. “It’s just … It’s been a long day.”

“Ah.” For once Ryshan didn’t have a smartass comment to make. Instead he cast a quick glance between Theron and Vector. “So … Where to next? Or are we headed back to Nar Shaddaa?”

Vector went and retrieved a datapad, turning it on and quickly bringing up the intel Theron had managed to slice. He brought up the list of locations they had put together: Hutta, Dromund Kaas, Ziost and that unnamed planet that was on the edge of Hutt space, near Chalacta. Ryshan looked at the list and shook his head.

“Oh _hell_ no,” he said, scowling. “I’m not going anywhere _near_ Imp space. I don’t care how much you pay me.”

Theron looked at Vector, then back at Rysh, frowning. He was a little surprised by the pilot’s vehemence; he would have sworn Ryshan would be willing to risk flying to an Imperial planet if the money was good enough. Theron was almost certain the man had done it before, although he couldn’t be completely certain. Maybe the smuggler’s connections weren’t as good as Theron had thought, or maybe something had happened to spook the man. _Or maybe,_ Theron thought, _he’s just protesting so he can jack up the prices._ That last idea seemed more Rysh’s style.

“That won’t be necessary,” Vector replied coolly, looking up as Miranza stepped out of the ‘fresher. She’d managed to get rid of the rest of the blood, but she still looked stiff and tense, and she maneuvered her way through the narrow hall and past her husband without giving him a second glance. Vector sighed, glancing away again, and then tapped the datapad, pointing to the coordinates for the unnamed planet. “We wish to travel here next.”

Ryshan squinted down at the viewscreen. “What’s there?”

“We’ve no idea.” Vector lowered the datapad. “Can you take us there?”

“Well, yeah. Sure.” Rysh shrugged, but Vector wasn’t finished.

“Can you take us there with the _least_ possible amount of misogyny, up to and including not requesting sexual services from our wife?” Vector’s fathomless black gaze pinned Ryshan as he continued. “Do not mistake her willingness to acquiesce to your _requests_ as an expression of genuine interest on her part. Likewise, do not mistake _our_ reluctance to interfere with her work as a lack of desire on our part to tear you limb from limb for your continuous demonstration of such callous disregard towards both her and the relationship we have with her. Miranza will do what is needful, but we strongly suggest you refrain from making any further demands upon her time or person.” He smiled, cold and hard, absolutely nothing friendly on his face. “Do we make ourselves clear, Captain Esselby?”

“Y-yeah,” Rysh stammered. Theron saw him start to take a step back, away from the Joiner, but he swiftly caught himself and stood his ground, unwilling to let on how much Vector frightened and intimidated him. “Look, I didn’t mean anything from it. Theron said you guys were open and – ”

“Theron,” Vector said coldly, “should mind his own business, and practice more discretion with _ours.”_

Theron’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He honestly couldn’t remember ever talking to Ryshan about the two Imperials, much less saying anything to give the pilot the impression that Miranza would be receptive to his flirting – or his demands. He racked his memories for anything he might have said or done the last few times he’d interacted with Rysh, but nothing came to mind and he was forced to acknowledge that a lot of his interactions with Ryshan tended to involve rather significant amounts of alcohol. Was he really that loose-lipped when he was drunk? Or was it just when he was drunk with Rysh? He knew he had a tendency to let his guard down when he was with the man, but he hadn’t realized he let it down _that_ much.

Before he could open his mouth – to say what, he didn’t know, although there was definitely an apology burbling up inside of him – Miranza stuck her head out of the cockpit and glared at the three men.

“Can we get going?” she asked, voice tight. “I feel like I’ve got a target painted on my back.”

“Um … sure.” Ryshan shrugged expansively and followed her into the cockpit, giving Theron one last confused glance and mouthing the words _What the fuck?_ at him.

Theron honestly wished he knew.


	18. Chapter 18

Ryshan’s shuttle was far too small to afford any of its occupants even the least semblance of privacy. The only enclosed, private space on board was the ‘fresher, and it was little more than a closet – certainly not large enough for more than one person. Theron sat up front in the cockpit with Rysh, eating a completely bland and tasteless ration bar while doing his best not to notice the couple sitting in stony silence only a few feet away.

Whatever was bothering Vector and Miranza, it continued eating away at them as Ryshan flew to their next destination. Both Imperials were professionals: they were fully capable of working together without letting their personal feelings come into play, and so they were able to offer up some input on their journey while still maintaining a careful but respectful distance from each other.

At one point Miranza stood to use the ‘fresher and Vector caught her wrist, stopping her before she could get past his seat.

“We should talk,” he said, his voice low.

“Yes,” she replied simply, “we should.” Then she glanced up towards the front of the shuttle, to where Ryshan was making no effort whatsoever to pretend that he wasn’t listening and Theron was doing everything in his power _not_ to eavesdrop, and she bit her lip and shook her head. “I can’t do this now.” She gave her husband a wan smile in an attempt to soften her response, adding, “We’ll talk later, okay?”

Vector released her, drawing his hand away slowly. “We shall hold you to that, beloved.”

Miranza ducked her head and continued towards the ‘fresher, and that was the end of the discussion.

Theron sank back into his seat, staring blankly at the expanse of starry sky ahead of him. The tension that ran through him was not entirely due to the disagreement between his two lovers. Ryshan had inputted the coordinates for their destination, but none of them had any idea where they were going or what they would find when they got there, and thus far the other locations had led to nothing but trouble for them. The planet – or moon – wasn’t on any astrogation charts that Theron was aware of, and Rysh, who was an experienced freight captain, hadn’t been to that particular part of the galaxy before. Theron wasn’t even sure if the planet was even in Hutt space: it was so precisely on the border between Hutt space and the Kastolar Sector that it could conceivably belong to either territory – or neither one. Its nebulous location, combined with its lack of presence on the map, suggested that someone had gone to a considerable amount of effort to select the planet and then keep its existence a secret. Given the secrets they had already unearthed, Theron wasn’t expecting to discover anything even remotely pleasant.

The Nar Shaddaa location had been a brothel with a monster hidden away inside. Theron had yet to decrypt all of the files they’d retrieved from there – if he was being honest with himself he could admit that he probably should have done that first, but the desire to get the kriff away from Nar Shaddaa and all the horrible things uncovered there had overwhelmed his professionalism – but what he _had_ managed to unlock was bad enough. Between the _thing_ in the back room and the file linking Miranza to the place Theron just wanted to crawl under a pile of blankets and pillows and try to forget everything he’d seen and heard, but then they’d made the trek to Hutta and found the slave auction. Or what was left of it. The slave auction, where an elderly Evocii had been responsible for taking care of infants before they could be sold to the highest bidder – and now both the auction house and Gran were gone, and Theron had no way of knowing if they might have found records suggesting that one of those infants was Miranza.

And now they were heading to a third location with no idea of what they were going to find. In the meantime two of Theron’s most favourite people in the galaxy were angry with each other and with him, and all he wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep for a month and pretend that none of this was real. The sane thing to do would have been for Ryshan to fly them all back to Nar Shaddaa, and then Vector and Miranza could head back into Imperial space and Theron could return to Coruscant and they could all just turn their backs on this investigation. But after everything that had happened - Joxer's death, the attempt on Theron's own life, the painful discoveries and Gran's murder - it seemed cowardly to back out now. The more Theron was told to back off, the more determined he became to see this thing through to its end.

Folding the ration bar wrapper up and sticking it in his pocket, Theron turned to Ryshan, studying the smuggler’s face in profile. Ryshan was focused on piloting the shuttle – it would have been simple enough to switch on the autopilot and let the shuttle fly itself for a while, but Rysh was someone who genuinely enjoyed being behind the controls and flying was as peaceful to him as meditation was to Theron or Vector. The freight captain sensed Theron looking at him, and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

“What?” he asked, before turning his gaze back to the viewport ahead of them.

“I don’t remember telling you anything about Miranza and Vector,” Theron said, aware that there was no way to talk quietly enough to avoid being overheard by the two Imperials in question. He was careful to keep the accusation out of his voice; knowing Rysh, that would just cause the man to shut down and ignore him.

Ryshan shrugged, not looking at him. “Honestly? You didn’t need to say anything. I saw the way you were looking at him when I ran into you at Vertica. I see how you look at them now. You never looked at _me_ like that.”

Theron didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he settled for apologizing, but Ryshan quickly cut him off.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, chuckling. “It’s not like I’m in love with you.” He glanced at Theron again, smirking. “You’re a fun fuck, Theron, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not in this for anything more than getting laid. Whatever you’re doing with your pet Imps, you’re not just screwing around. Never woulda figured you for a relationship guy, though.”

_Me neither,_ Theron thought, but kept it to himself. Instead he asked out loud, “So if you think I’m in a relationship with them, why the hell would you come after Miranza like that?”

“Have you kriffing _seen_ that woman?” Rysh replied, laughing again. “She could be married to the Emperor or the head of the Hutt Cartel and I’d still be after that like a fat kid on Namana candy.” He shrugged again. “Besides, she’s a spy. Of _course_ I figured she’d be down for a quick fuck. Name one spook who isn’t.”

Theron could name quite a few, in fact, but most of them were classified and at no point was he going to suggest to Ryshan that he knew the current Minister of Sith Intelligence personally (although of all of the spies Theron knew, Lana Beniko seemed the least likely to just randomly fall into bed with someone – not because she was a prude, but because that simply wasn’t the way she operated). It was a commonly held belief that Intelligence operatives were promiscuous, however, and Theron knew he was hardly an exception to the rule. That didn’t exactly justify Ryshan’s behaviour towards Miranza, though, nor did it explain how the pilot had come to the conclusion that Vector and Miranza were in an open relationship.

“Okaaaay,” he said slowly, voicing his thought, “How’d you know their relationship was open?”

“I didn’t,” Ryshan replied smugly, “but you just confirmed it for me, so thanks.”

_Oh, for fuck’s –_

There was a soft clearing of a throat from behind them, and Theron turned to see Vector leaning forward. The Joiner’s expression was difficult to read, but if Theron was any judge – and he liked to think that he _was_ – he would guess that Vector was trying very hard not to show the understandable dislike he was beginning to develop for Ryshan. (A feeling that seemed mutual, so far as Theron could tell: Rysh was obviously put off by the fact that Vector was a Joiner and made zero effort to disguise his discomfort - which, in turn, intensified Vector's dislike of him. It was hard to be reasonable and friendly towards someone who looked at you like they'd found you stuck to the bottom of their shoe.)

“Open,” Vector said quietly but clearly, “does not mean without standards, Captain Esselby.”

Ryshan’s mouth snapped shut, cutting off his triumphant laughter, and he glared at the viewport ahead of him. Vector settled back in his seat, but not before giving Theron a long, assessing look.

“We shall discuss this later, love,” he said to Theron, echoing his wife’s earlier words.

Theron’s cheeks flushed as Rysh arched an eyebrow in his direction at the nickname, but it was more a blush of pleasure at the fact that Vector was still using the endearment than embarrassment at Ryshan overhearing it. He nodded, and paraphrased Vector’s words back to him.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

O o O o O

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking …”

Ryshan held his cupped hands around his mouth, pretending he was talking into a loudspeaker. He didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard on the small shuttle, but he did so anyway.

“We are reaching atmo on planet Bumblefucknowhere and will shortly be attempting a landing in the middle of a Force-forsaken swamp, so please put your seat backs and tray tables in their full upright position and hang onto your asses.”

Theron sat up, watching out of the corner of his eye as Miranza went to get her gear and change into her armour. Ryshan had already been able to give them a brief rundown on what his sensors were showing him about the planet’s surface – swampy, as he’d already said, but there _were_ signs of development down there – so they weren’t going in completely unprepared. Ryshan’s shuttle was decked out with stealth tech (the exact nature of which Rysh was unwilling to discuss, which led Theron to the conclusion that it was almost certainly black market tech and incredibly illegal in both Republic and Imperial space); the freighter captain was confident he could fly in without the shuttle being detected, but he was unwilling to get too close to whoever or whatever had set up shop down there. They had no clue who had settled on this planet but given how much effort had gone into hiding the place it seemed unlikely they would be terribly welcoming towards unexpected visitors. Rysh could land the shuttle on any stretch of reasonably flat land, and then they would have to hoof it on foot to the nearest spaceport (or whatever the development was).

From the viewport Theron could see the planet’s surface stretching out before them. Unlike Hutta, whose swamps and fields had been poisoned by pollution and unregulated industrial waste, this planet was green and lush. Stands of tall, narrow trees topped by emerald green leaves clustered together, surrounded on all sides by glistening green water. In the distance Theron could see more trees, a dense forest that stood between them and the settlement Ryshan had spotted on his sensors.

“It’s pretty,” he commented.

“Huh?” Ryshan sounded distracted as he fiddled with the controls, checking his scanners for a suitable landing site. With his shuttle just about any flat expanse of ground could work; that was part of the ship's allure (and made it particularly useful to smugglers, pirates and privateers). He looked up at the viewport, then glanced back behind them, where Miranza and Vector were changing spots so that Vector could get up and collect his gear. “Yeah, I guess. Distinctly lacking in cantinas and casinos and Twi'lek dancing girls, though, so not really my thing.”

When Vector continued past the open door of the ‘fresher – clearly headed to the very back of the shuttle where the gear was stored, rather than making a pit-stop – Ryshan gestured to Theron and grinned.

“I gotta take a piss,” he announced, in typical Ryshan-oversharing fashion. “You know how to fly one of these babies, right? Cover for me? I’ll be back before we need to land, I just need you to keep an eye on the controls in case of anything unexpected. Like, you know, a bird or some angry tribesmen or an Imperial battle cruiser.”

“Yeah, sure.” Theron waited until Rysh was out of his seat, then shuffled over, settling in behind the shuttle controls. He knew how to fly most smaller spacecraft and could probably pilot this particular kind of shuttle in his sleep – Miranza had not been mistaken when she had said they didn’t really need Ryshan, only his ship. At this point, however, there wasn’t much to do until it was time to land the shuttle, and it seemed like Rysh really did just want Theron to keep alert for potential hazards.

Theron heard Ryshan making some comment to Miranza as he approached her, and he looked back out of the corner of his eye, bracing for some kind of argument between the two. He saw something glint in Ryshan’s hand and before either he or Miranza could react the pilot was jabbing a syringe into her neck.

“Nothing personal, Theron,” the pilot called back to him as Miranza sagged into his arms, “but do you have any idea how much this bitch is worth?”

Before Theron had a chance to respond – or even do more than get halfway out of his seat – Ryshan turned and fired at the console with a holdout blaster Theron hadn't even realized he'd had, sending up a shower of sparks. The shuttle suddenly and violently veered off course and Theron was thrown against the console. Ryshan then turned and slammed his hand against the biometric door panel, and the shuttle door flew open as alarms began to blare.

Ryshan puckered his lips and pretended to blow Theron a kiss before leaping out of the shuttle with Miranza in his arms. Theron pounded his fist against the navigation panel in anger and grabbed the yoke, fighting for control of the shuttle even as electricity continued to spark and flare across the console. If he’d had more time he could’ve connected his implants to the navigation system and taken control of the shuttle that way, but there had been no warning and his implants took too long to connect for him to make at attempt now. His best hope was to try to land the ship manually - as much as he wanted to jump out of the shuttle after Ryshan and Miranza, or at least to look out the door and make sure the two of them weren't splattered across the marshy ground below, Vector was still in the rear of the ship and Theron wasn't about to just abandon the Joiner on board a crashing shuttle.

The ship gave another sudden, violent jerk and Theron saw the swampy green ground rising up in the viewport before him. He managed to yank the yoke back, leveling the shuttle out a bit so they didn’t nose-dive directly into the swamp, and then the controls were fighting him, pulling to the right when he was trying to draw them left. There was another vicious lurch and Theron lost his balance, careening into the side console beside him. He heard something crack as he connected with the panel head-first. He felt a flash of pain in his left temple as his vision first went white, then grey, and then finally everything faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahem. So. I can't even drive a car and know absolutely nothing about flying, so I hope the bit with the shuttle made sense. Also, I'm sure it actually took much longer for Ryshan to fly them from Hutta to Bumblefucknowhere but I didn't feel like writing about it, so I didn't. *raspberries* So there.


	19. Chapter 19

There was something inherently surreal about waking up facedown on what used to be the ceiling of the shuttle but was now effectively the floor. When Vector first opened his eyes he had a brief moment of disorientation and confusion. He couldn’t figure out where he was and he had no memory of how he had come to be there. Then water – cold and smelling faintly of sulphur and rot – lapped against his face and sudden panicky remembrance came rushing over him.

_Miranza._

Gasping, Vector pushed himself up off the ground – or tried to, before a sudden sharp pain tore through his flank and he was left curled up on his side with an arm wrapped around his torso, desperately trying to breathe through the agony in his ribs. He had fallen amidst plasteel crates and durasteel lockboxes, the contents of the shuttle’s small cargo area scattered and knocked about by the crash. He must have landed on one of them, or something had landed on _him_ and now his abdomen felt like it was on fire and it hurt to breathe.

No matter. He’d dealt with cracked and broken ribs before, he could do it again. He had to get to Theron, had to find Miranza ...

Vector cautiously picked himself up, keeping his arm pressed to his right side and using his left hand to push, pull and then drag himself up off the ground. The ship was relatively level (albeit completely upside-down) but their belongings were strewn across the floor and water had begun to flood in, making it difficult for him to hobble towards the cockpit. It was getting dark – he had no clue what the planet’s cycle was and therefore had no idea whether the days were long or short – but he could dimly make out Theron’s familiar figure crumpled up under the console, and he limped towards the other man, his booted feet slipping and sliding over mud-slicked tiles.

He passed by the open door and looked out, half expecting to see Miranza and Ryshan nearby but all he saw was swamp. Jaw set in a grim line – in part to keep himself from screaming in rage – Vector limped the rest of the way to the cockpit.

Theron was so still that for one terrifying moment Vector thought he’d been killed in the crash, but as he got closer he could see the faint rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed. Vector took another step towards him, reaching out to grasp his shoulder, only for there to be a loud metallic groaning sound as the shuttle suddenly lurched and shifted downwards. Water poured in through the open door, pooling at Vector’s feet and around Theron’s unconscious body. Something sparked on the console overhead, and when Vector looked up he could see smoke beginning to plume out from under a panel.

It could be dangerous to move Theron; Vector had no way of knowing what the agent’s injuries were and there was a risk of aggravating them – but _not_ moving him would be even more dangerous. The shuttle appeared to be slowly sinking into the swamp, and if that wasn’t bad enough something in the instrument panel seemed to be on fire. Theron's current injuries were (hopefully) fixable; drowning or burning to death were _not_. Vector bent and hooked his hands under Theron’s armpits, attempting to drag him free of the wreckage. The movement sent fiery agony lancing through him and Vector found himself doubled over, gasping for breath (which hurt) and retching (which hurt _more)._ Steeling himself against the pain, Vector grit his teeth and tried again. Theron was shorter than him but broader in the shoulders and more muscular, and his dead weight was difficult to budge – but Vector had no other choice in the matter, not if he wanted to keep his lover alive. With a hoarse grunt of pain he managed to haul Theron towards the shuttle door, the two of them tumbling out into the swamp beyond.

The swamp water was cold and stagnant, and Vector fell back into it with a startled, pained gasp and a rather large splash, Theron landing on top of him. Even a slight jostling would have been enough to make Vector’s ribs ache, but the brunt of Theron’s weight fell on him and that nearly had Vector passing out from the pain. Only his own grim resolve kept him conscious and he gently pushed Theron off of him, careful to avoid him toppling face-first into the swamp, then began to slowly and cautiously drag him away from the shuttle.

The spaceship had crashed on the outer edge of the swamp, for which Vector was immensely grateful as it meant there was dry land relatively close by. Nonetheless it took him a painfully long time to haul Theron out of the water and by the time he had the unconscious agent up on the shore Vector was on the verge of collapsing himself. His ribs felt like they were on fire and his lungs weren’t too far behind and there was a dull throbbing in his head that forced him to consider why he’d been unconscious in the first place. Vector couldn’t remember hitting his head, and in his experience that was almost certainly a bad sign.

It was too dark for Vector to assess Theron’s injuries, but he knew both of them were in need of medical attention – not to mention shelter, dry clothing and clean water. There was a wrongness about Theron’s profile that was troubling Vector, but at the moment he couldn’t quite figure it out. He needed to get the other man to shelter, but first he needed to retrieve some supplies if he was to have any hope of treating their injuries and keeping them both alive.

The shuttle had sunk a few more inches by the time Vector managed to slog his way back through the swampy water, and the smoke in the cockpit had become dense enough to make him cough. He groaned, pressing one hand to his side as he stepped in through the open door. His weight made the shuttle shift and his booted foot slid along the muddy ceiling panels, causing him to bark his shin against the door-frame. Vector cursed under his breath, borrowing a few of Theron’s favourite expletives, and made his way towards the rear of the shuttle where their gear had been stored.

The smoke made his eyes sting and he had to fight against the urge to cough as he searched through the scattered crates and lockboxes. He found Miranza’s medical supplies almost straight away; she carried them in a clearly labelled pack so they could be located easily in case of an emergency. Their weapons were stored in a heavy locked crate that had landed on its side, and he had to struggle to get it the right way up before he could open it. Vector was aware of the ship sinking as he searched, the water pouring in around his feet making his efforts frantic and hurried. He could swim, but the shuttle was descending into mud rather than water, and if he got sucked in with it there was little chance he’d be able to get out again. He managed to overturn the crate and used a twisted length of metal to bust the lock open; it took a couple of sharp jabs before he found the right angle and leverage to snap the metal lock loose. Weapons came tumbling out into the muddy water. He dumped a bag of clothing – he hoped it was Ryshan’s – into the mud and quickly filled it with as many weapons as he could cram in, tucking his own collapsible staff in one of the loops at his belt and slipping a holdout blaster in his waistband at the small of his back. The last thing he had time to grab was a couple of survival packs – camping gear, MREs and hopefully some more medkits – before he had to climb back out of the shuttle.

It was full dark by the time Vector made his way back to Theron, and the agent was still out cold. Vector did a quick check of Theron’s vitals, confirming that the unconscious man was indeed still breathing and his heart was still beating, before searching for a place to make camp. The urge to hunt down Ryshan and Miranza was almost overpowering, but Vector was in no condition for any kind of fight and he sincerely doubted the pilot was going to just hand her over. The last thing Vector had seen of them, Miranza had been slumped in Ryshan’s arms; he had to assume his wife would be of no use in a fight, at least not under the present circumstances. He needed to find her, but he couldn't leave Theron behind, not like this. Theron's abandonment issues were bad enough without being _literally_ abandoned in a swamp on some unknown planet.

A few feet away from the shoreline Vector found a large uprooted tree whose trunk could provide some shelter. He returned to Theron and, gritting his teeth against the continued pain in his ribs, half-dragged, half-carried the SIS agent towards the tree.

The urge to just collapse beside Theron and pass out was almost overwhelming, and only the knowledge that doing so would almost certainly result in one or both of them dying from exposure kept him from giving in. Vector’s feet dragged and he constantly had to stop to catch his breath – or rather, to remind his lungs how to function properly in spite of the consistent throbbing in his side – but he eventually had a rudimentary shelter thrown together. The survival packs contained thick canvas tarps that Vector was able to drape over the trunk, creating a makeshift tent that would hopefully keep them dry(ish) and warm(ish). Another tarp served to keep them off the ground. Everything was too wet and muddy for Vector to get a fire started, but he had some heating gel-packs that could provide some warmth, at least for a limited period of time.

Once he had things set up to the best of his ability, Vector rummaged around in the survival kit until he found some glow rods. Cracking one, he hooked it onto a thin branch that jutted down from the trunk, hanging it over them to provide some illumination. In the sickly green light cast off by the glow rod Vector caught sight of Theron’s face, and he suddenly understood the reason for the “wrongness” he’d noticed earlier: the little yellow and red lights that normally shone from his cranial implants were completely dark. Vector had never seen Theron without the augmentations active, and he frantically wracked his memories for anything that might tell him what purpose those implants served. There were so many medical conditions cybernetics could potentially treat – migraines, epilepsy, neurological disorders – and he desperately prayed Theron’s implants served a non-medical function, because he had no way of getting them back online.

In addition to Theron’s implants being offline, Vector could also see that something had cracked the moulded casement surrounding them, and long thin wires had torn loose, sparking against Theron’s skin enough to leave minor burns over his left eye. Vector had no experience dealing with cybernetic augmentations of any sort, but he knew what he was looking at was bad; the damaged implants needed to be replaced, or removed and the neural sockets capped off. The entire left side of Theron’s face was badly bruised and bloodied from a jagged slash just over his implant. Vector didn’t know what Theron had collided with, but given how many times the man had banged his head he was beginning to suspect his cybernetics had a strongly magnetic component that automatically drew everything towards his skull. It was a wonder he still knew how to walk and talk.

Before treating the head injury, Vector needed to assess Theron’s condition and see if he’d managed to hurt himself in some other fashion. Undressing an unconscious man was hardly a sensuous experience: Theron was heavy and unwieldy and his wet, muddy clothes were plastered to his body. Vector’s fingers were numb with cold and he struggled with the buttons and clasps before finally managing to unfasten everything. When he peeled away Theron’s shirt and trousers he had to sit back and catch his breath, willing the aching in his side and head to subside.

The head wound seemed to be the worst of Theron’s injuries; once he was stripped down to his underthings there were only a few minor bruises on his legs and torso, and the portable med-scanner didn’t show any signs of internal injuries, for which Vector was profoundly grateful. He applied copious amounts of kolto to the wicked bruising on Theron’s face and temple, then used some kind of medical glue to close the nasty cut over his eye, slapping a bandage on over top of that. He covered Theron in a couple of thermal blankets and tucked heating gel-packs in next to his feet and torso, then began to work on his own clothing.

Undressing himself was almost as difficult as undressing Theron, and just about as painful. Vector was unsurprised by the livid bruising on his right side; he tentatively ran his hand along his flanks and was relieved to feel the bones sturdy and apparently whole – as far as he could tell without more than a portable med-scanner nothing was broken, just very badly bruised. There were more bruises on his legs from bumping into things in the dark and a small but painful cut on his left shin from banging it against one of the metal crates inside the shuttle. He guessed from the pain in his head that he probably had some contusions on his face as well, but overall he had to admit that for someone who had just survived a shuttle crash he was in remarkably good condition, all things considered. He didn’t know if he had Theron or good luck to thank for that, but whatever the case Vector was grateful for it.

Exhausted and aching, the Joiner unfolded another couple of thermal blankets and settled them over himself, curling up against Theron to combine warmth as much as possible. Vector knew it wasn’t safe to sleep with a concussion but he didn’t have the energy left to force himself to stay awake and thus far he'd been unable to rouse Theron. He slung his arm over Theron’s hip and closed his eyes.

Vector’s last thoughts before exhaustion claimed him were of his wife, and he sent up a silent prayer that wherever she was, she was alive – and he would find her.

O o O o O

_“Get up. Get_ up.”

The vicious slap left Miranza reeling and she would have toppled face-first into the mud if it weren’t for the hand wound through her ponytail keeping her upright. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but the world around her remained dark and blurry. Ryshan’s face, angry and filled with scorn, came into view in front of her, his hand already drawing back to administer another slap. She braced herself – then brought her arm up, blocking his hand before he could land the blow.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” he said, lowering his hand. He released his grip on her hair and she staggered, knees buckling. “Get up. I’m not fucking carrying you, princess.”

Miranza flashed back on Alderaan a little over a year ago: a different man, a different time and place, but the same degree of contempt and fury directed towards her. She hadn’t made life easy for that man then and she had no intentions of making things easy for the pilot now.

“If you wanted me to walk,” she said, righting herself, “maybe you shouldn’t have drugged me. _Asshole.”_

Ryshan did slap her again and this time she couldn’t block it; she was too focused on staying upright. Her head snapped back, her ears ringing and tears flooding her eyes, but as she collected herself again she leveled a glare at him.

“Just get up and walk,” he snapped back at her, pointing at something on his waist. She blinked, recognizing the control for a shock collar; it was only then that she noticed the unfamiliar weight around her neck. He saw the recognition on her face and smirked. “These things are a bitch to get in Republic space, let me tell you. Thank goodness I’ve got friends all over, right?”

“Yes, you’re _so_ resourceful,” Miranza muttered, resisting the urge to punch him. It had been a long time since she’d last experienced the jolt from a shock collar – it couldn’t hurt _that_ much, right? Surely it’d be worth it to hit him?

“You have no idea,” Ryshan replied, voice menacing. “Now get up and fucking walk, or you’ll be sorry you didn’t.”

“You’re not really good at threats, are you?”

Ryshan hit the button on the control switch and Miranza cried out as the collar zapped electricity through her body. She’d been half-wrong: the fucking thing hurt like a son of a bitch, but it _was_ worth it to mouth off to him. She wondered if it was possible to be shocked into unconsciousness, and if she could do it so that Ryshan would be forced to carry her all the way to … wherever he was taking her. Only the realization that she had no desire to be unconscious in his presence (again) kept her from angering the man further. She wanted to be awake and have full control of her faculties, and not be dragged or carried to their final destination like a sack of charbote roots.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked as she dragged herself back to her feet. Adrenaline was starting to burn off the lingering effects of whatever he’d drugged her with, but she still felt weak and shaky, and her brain was muzzy and cloudy. She hated being drugged. She hated not having control over herself.

The pilot was silent for a moment; she could practically feel him weighing the pros and cons of answering her question. The two of them walked across swampy ground, mud clinging to their boots and pulling away with loud sucking sounds. The air was cool and it was getting dark. Miranza wondered how long she’d been out. She wondered where Vector and Theron were. The last thing she remembered, they were on the shuttle together. Had they crashed? Had they landed and split up from there? She couldn’t remember.

_Please let them be okay,_ she thought, blinking back sudden tears.

“Apparently,” Ryshan said slowly, “you’ve been missed. While you and your _boyfriends_ were traipsing around over Hutta, an old buddy of mine gave me a holo. You know Darmas Pollaran? He’s with Intelligence, too.”

Miranza didn’t recognize the name, but honestly, did he really think everyone in Sith Intelligence knew everyone else? She was a kriffing _cipher agent,_ she couldn’t be expected to keep track of every operative working for the Empire – that wasn’t her job, that was a Watcher’s job. She kept her mouth shut, however; she didn’t feel like getting electrocuted again. Or slapped.

“Way Darmas tells it, you’ve been a naughty, naughty girl, Miranza,” Ryshan went on, oblivious to her thoughts. “Slipping away from your Imp handlers, taking up with a Pub spy, defecting … Tsk, tsk.”

“Is that what they told you I’ve done?”

Ryshan snorted. “Sweetheart, I already know all about you and Theron – and your fucking creepy bug husband. To be honest, I don’t really give a kriff if you and your pet freak want to jump ship and join the Republic. I mean, you do you, right? But I guess Darmas and your other buddies back at home base are kinda pissed off about it – and who can blame them, right? I mean, you are a fucking traitor, you know? – and, well, they gave me a holo and offered me a metric fuck-ton of credits to bring you in for them.”

“Whatever they’re paying you,” Miranza said through gritted teeth, “I can double it.” She had resources – the Empire had paid her well, she and Vector had made some sound investments, she could pull this off …

Another snort. “It’s not just about the money, gorgeous. Credits, access to Imp tech for my fleet, an Imperial privateer’s marque – I’m already a stupidly rich man, babe, and your buddies are about to make me even richer. Plus, you know, immunity from Imperial prosecution for all past and future crimes against the Empire …”

_And you're calling_ me _a traitor?_ It was Miranza’s turn to snort, and she turned around, glaring at the pilot. “Do you honestly think they intend to honour any of that? The moment you hand me over to them, they’re just going to kill you – _if you’re lucky.”_

Whatever Ryshan’s response was – he scoffed at her; he didn’t think she was serious – Miranza paid him no further attention. Instead she was focused on his response regarding who he thought he was handing her over to and why. Darmas Pollaran – whoever that was – had told Ryshan that she and Vector were traitors, that they were defecting to the Republic; had he known Ryshan wouldn’t be the least bit patriotic or care about kidnapping and turning over a possible Republic asset? Was this the story Sith Intelligence was spreading about them, to justify further action against them? (As if Intelligence _or_ the Sith had ever required justification for their actions. As if it even mattered - outside of a handful of people, who was going to care what happened to her and Vector?)

_Oh, Force ... Vector. Please be safe. Please be with Theron._

She had known it would be a risk going back into the brothel after their first disastrous break-in, but she had hoped that Theron killing the two guards would have ensured it didn’t get back to the Empire that she and Vector were assisting the Republic agent. Had someone else been watching them, or had there been security cameras they hadn’t noticed? That seemed unlikely: between her and Theron’s skills and Vector’s enhanced senses, _one_ of them would have picked up on a tail or a security feed. They’d clearly been spotted on Hutta, if that was when Darmas had contacted Ryshan, but was that an attack of opportunity or had someone at Intelligence already concluded that the people snooping around at the auction house were Miranza and Vector?

Miranza’s mind was too muddled from the aftereffects of whatever drugs Ryshan had given her to knock her out, and none of this was making any sense to her. She felt like she’d been wandering around in a daze forever now – before Ryshan, before Hutta – and that vague sense of confusion seemed to settle over her every thought and feeling, tainting her memories and emotions as though someone was trying to interfere with her ability to function rationally. She’d seen similar effects, of course: the Empire made extensive use of brainwashing and the SLV serum series produced results that were remarkably akin to –

Miranza tripped over her own feet, stumbling blindly. Behind her Ryshan raised his voice on an insult, but she ignored him, mind working frantically.

What she felt – what she’d been feeling for _days_ now – was an awful lot like being exposed to SLV serums – or Force persuasion, which she was supposed to be immune to. Except that the creature back on Nar Shaddaa had controlled both her and Vector effortlessly, and after that they had both been tense and cross with each other and with Theron. Miranza had assumed that tension had been the result of the terrible revelations she’d had over the past few days, but what if … what if it wasn’t? What if she was still being controlled now?

What if Vector – wherever he was – was also still being controlled?

She looked at Ryshan, her thoughts running together in a jumbled mess.

“Who did you say you were bringing me to?” she asked, trying for a nonchalant tone of voice.

“I didn’t,” Ryshan replied, “but Darmas said your father misses you very much.”

_No,_ Miranza thought, feeling cold, some dark and twisted memory coming to the forefront of her mind, _not_ my _father. Just ‘Father.’_

Before she could think about that – about why she’d even thought it, about where the thought had come from in the first place – long-dormant memories came rushing unbidden into Miranza’s mind, crashing over her like a tidal wave, drowning her in thoughts and feelings she’d long ago forgotten.

Ryshan wasn’t handing her over to Sith Intelligence. Ryshan was handing her over to Father.

O o O o O

It was the muffled cry of fear that woke Vector up some time later, and he came awake with a start, his arm pulling away from the thrashing body beside him. _Theron._ The agent was caught in the grips of a nightmare – or he had awakened to find himself in the dark, with no clue where he was or how he’d come to be there. In either event Theron was terrified and lashing out, and Vector drew back, opening his mouth to say something soothing when –

_“Oof!”_

Theron’s elbow jabbed Vector in the side and the Joiner’s vision greyed out as fiery agony tore through him. _Oh stars,_ he couldn’t _breathe,_ surely that blow had jarred one of his ribs loose and now it must be stabbing through his lungs and –

“Vector?” Theron’s worried hazel eyes bore down on him as panicked hands began searching Vector’s torso for injury. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to … You’re hurt …”

Vector sucked in a sharp breath and resisted the urge to bat Theron’s hands away as the confused agent pressed down on something that felt painfully hot and squishy. He managed to gasp out a breathless “Stop” before pulling back from Theron, bringing his hands up to fend him off.

_“Stop,_ please, Theron,” Vector croaked, curling an arm protectively against his side and slowly, carefully sitting up. “It’s fine, we’re fine, just … please stop poking at us.”

It was still dark, which no doubt added to Theron’s confusion. Light enough that Vector’s heightened senses could make out the other man’s features, but in all likelihood Theron’s own eyesight was nowhere near as enhanced – especially not with his implants still offline. It bothered Vector how strange it seemed to see Theron without those little lights blinking above his eye; he’d never really paid much attention to the other man’s implants before, but now that they had gone dark he couldn’t stop staring at them, and at the painful bruising and discolouration that surrounded them. Distracting himself from his lover’s injuries – and the worries that accompanied them – Vector found another glow rod and cracked it, this time casting a soft yellow light on their makeshift shelter.

“Shit, Vector, your chest,” Theron began, as the light reflected off the crinkly metallic blanket that had fallen to Vector’s waist as he sat up. The resulting effect was that Vector’s torso – and all the glorious bruising – was on full display, and Theron ran a tentative hand over the Joiner’s side. “What _happened_ to you?”

Vector tried not to flinch against his touch. Theron’s hand was at least warm and gentle, but the skin underneath his fingers was tender and even that small amount of pressure was painful. “Do you not remember, love?”

“Remember … what?” Theron was frowning, looking around with a vague air of suspicion as he took in their surroundings: the tarp draped over the tree trunk, the thermal blankets covering them, their gear and clothing stacked off to one side. His frown pulled at the skin of his face, and he winced, suddenly noticing the bruising on his temple. Theron’s hand went up to brush over the injuries and his confused expression deepened. “I hit my head?”

_Again,_ Vector thought, although he kept that to himself. Out loud he said, “Yes, and rather badly, too, we think. Your implants have gone offline.”

“Oh.” Theron let out a relieved sigh, fingering the curve of metal arching over his eye. “That explains why everything feels so … muted. I’m used to more sensory input than this.”

“So your implants aren’t medically necessary?” Vector asked carefully, aware that it might be a sensitive issue for the man.

“Huh? Oh, no. They’re just …” Theron shrugged. “Multifunctional, I guess, but not … not necessary.” He gave Vector a wan smile. “Kinda classified, though, so let’s just say … I can live without ‘em. It’ll just take some adjustment.”

“That’s something of a relief,” Vector admitted. “We were afraid the implants might be regulating your brain activity or heartrate or some such. We’ve limited experience with such things, ourselves.” Seeing the burns on Theron’s forehead from where the sparking wires had brushed his skin and the angry inflammation around the sockets, Vector was rather forcibly reminded of why he’d never really gone in much for implants and augmentations. Admittedly, his Killik enhancements were a similar kind of cheating, but at least they didn’t leave parts of his brain exposed.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked, as Theron continued to look around with some confusion.

Theron frowned, closing his eyes briefly as he considered. “We were … on the shuttle? Rysh was taking us to …” His frown deepened. “Hutta, I think?”

_Oh, stars, he doesn’t know._ Vector ran a hand over his face, then reached out and took Theron’s hand in his. “Love, we were on the shuttle, but we had left Hutta, heading towards …” He refused to say ‘Bumblefucknowhere,’ even if that was the only name they had for the planet they were currently on. “We were heading towards the next location.”

Theron nodded, growing suspicious at Vector’s careful, gentle tone of voice. “Vector, what happened? Did something happen to … ? Where’s Miranza? Where’s Rysh? Are they hurt?”

“Theron.” Vector cleared his throat, forcing down his anger at Ryshan and his growing terror over what might be happening to his wife while they hid out under a tree in some bog somewhere. “Love, Ryshan was _not_ your friend. He destroyed the shuttle controls and … and he took her. He took Miranza. He’s the reason we’re both hurt – and the reason she’s gone. _He took her.”_

“Took her where?”

“We don’t know,” Vector admitted, his voice a low growl, “but we are bloody well going to find her.”


	20. Chapter 20

Vector awakened sometime later with Miranza’s screams echoing in his ears.

Shaken, he tried telling himself it was just a nightmare, but there was a part of him that was desperately afraid he had lost her forever. There was a time, after Miranza had given herself to the Star Cabal as part of Shara Jenn’s desperate ploy to sow misinformation, after Vector had been forced to stand back and watch as mercenaries tortured her, that he found himself waking up night after night, her voice screaming inside his mind. He’d known it was only a bad dream – Miranza hadn’t screamed that time on Corellia; in fact she’d spent the better part of the torture sass-talking her would-be interrogators to the point where he felt fairly confident in asserting that the majority of her injuries had come not from their attempts to interrogate her, but from them losing patience and taking their frustrations out on her – but it had still haunted him for months on end. When it happened again, when she’d been taken on Belsavis and then _again_ on Alderaan, those nightmares had returned. It seemed as though those nightmares would always be just below the surface for Vector: lurking, waiting, powered by the certainty that nothing about his or Miranza’s life was safe or would ever _be_ safe and that at any moment she could be snatched from him. Vector knew how close he’d come to losing her, again and again and again, and the fact that he hadn’t been able to save her any of those times ate away at him, just as her absence ate away at him now. Not because Miranza was helpless or some damsel in need of rescuing, but because he loved her and wanted her to be safe and he knew she felt the same way about him.

And now she’d been taken from him _again,_ and there was not a Force-bedamned thing he could do about it.

_Please, just let her be alive,_ he thought, sitting up slowly and rubbing his tired eyes. He would be there to help her work through anything, any trauma, any injury – he knew she would be strong enough to get past it, so long as she simply _survived._

Vector ran an exploratory hand over his side, pressing his fingers lightly against the tender ribs. Between the kolto and his own Killik-enhanced physiology he was already feeling considerably improved, a fact for which he was immensely grateful as regardless of the condition he was in he wasn’t about to lay around all day waiting to recover. The thermal blanket crinkled as he lowered it to inspect the bruising over his torso. In the weak morning light he could see that some of the bruises were already fading; in a handful of days he would be almost fully healed. His head still ached but it was a dull pain and it seemed to him that it felt as though a fog had been lifted from his eyes – a fog that, now he considered it, seemed to have been present for days now, and was not a result of the crash. Instead, rather, it felt to him that something had jarred that fog loose, and he was finally able to see the world clearly again.

He didn’t have a chance to consider this for long, however, as beside him Theron made a small noise of distress and tried to curl in closer against him. Vector absentmindedly brushed his hand over Theron’s head, intending to soothe him, but paused when he observed how sweaty the agent was; his short brown hair was sticking up in sweat-dampened spikes and he felt noticeably warm to the touch. The morning was cool and crisp, and Vector - who typically ran warm himself - was chilled from lowering the thermal blanket that covered them. It seemed odd that Theron should feel so warm in spite of the cold air.

_Please don’t let him be worsening,_ Vector thought, peering down at the other man’s face. He wasn’t in the habit of praying – Vector considered himself to be a spiritual man but not a particularly religious one – and yet this was the second prayer he’d sent off into the Void. Theron was human through and through, without any of Vector’s Joiner enhancements; consequently, the bruising that had been present the night before seemed to have grown to cover almost the entirety of the left side of his face. The cut over his eye looked somewhat better – at least the glue had ensured it closed properly – but there were obvious signs of inflammation surrounding his damaged implants. If Vector had had the tools necessary (not to mention the skills) he could have done something to close or cap off the implant ports; covering what were essentially open wounds in kolto and then wrapping it all up in bandages appeared to have done next to nothing save assuage Vector’s desire to feel useful.

Vector’s Killik-enhanced senses told him the same thing a regular human’s eyes could see: Theron was unwell and showing little sign of improvement. While the pungent stink of the swamp made it next to impossible for Vector discern anything from Theron’s own unique scent – under different circumstances he might have been able to detect the subtle shifts in pheromones and body odour that could indicate Theron’s degree of health – Theron’s aura was perfectly clear to him, and the discolouration Vector saw in it gave him pause. The normal brilliant blues and greens that composed Theron’s aura were shot through with muddy red streaks, most of which seemed to originate from the awful bruising at his temple, and there was an overall murkiness that covered everything, a dimness that dulled Theron’s naturally vibrant hues. Had Theron been fully conscious Vector might have been able to detect other vagaries within his aura, but half-asleep as he was everything was jumbled and fuzzy.

Vector dug through the medkit, rifling through the various bottles of pills and sorting through them until he found what he was looking for. This would be easier if Miranza were here; she would know what to do to treat Theron’s injuries. She would know which medications to give him and the correct dosage, and under her watchful eye the agent would already be showing drastic signs of improvement. She would be able to _fix_ this. Instead Theron had to make do with Vector’s feeble care and limited medical knowledge, and Vector was terrified this would not be enough.

“Theron, love, it’s time to wake up now,” he said, giving the other man a gentle nudge. Theron came awake with a start, scrunching his eyes up against the thin morning light. He immediately groaned and tried to pull the thermal blanket back over his face to cover his eyes. Vector drew it back, repressing a twinge of guilt at the look of pain that crossed Theron’s face as he tried to turn his face away from the light. He had found what he hoped was the right bottle – some multi-purpose antibiotics – and helped Theron sit up before handing him a couple of pills.

“Painkillers?” Theron asked hopefully, dry-swallowing the two pills with a grimace.

“Antibiotics,” Vector replied before tipping two more pills out into his hand and giving them to Theron. “We are concerned you may be getting an infection. Here, _these_ are painkillers.”

“Fuck.” The word was half-whispered and didn’t appear to be directed at Vector. Theron accepted the painkillers, working up a mouthful of spit before swallowing them down same as the first two pills. “How long was I out?”

Vector retrieved their folded clothing, sighing at the realization that everything was still slightly damp and cold. He wished he’d had time to collect more than just the emergency supplies from the sinking shuttle, but between the water, the fire in the cockpit and the fact that he’d been forced to leave Theron unconscious and helpless on the bank nearby, he hadn’t really been thinking about the necessity of clean dry clothing. He could only hope the day would warm up; he didn’t much fancy the thought of slogging around in wet gear, and it would do absolutely nothing to improve Theron’s condition.

“We’re not certain,” he replied cautiously, tossing Theron’s shirt and trousers at him. “Our chrono didn’t survive the crash and we don’t know the standard rotational period of this planet. We would guess we slept for a few hours at most, however.” _Not nearly long enough,_ Vector thought, while at the same time thinking, _yet far too long._ “How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” Theron acknowledged, pulling the shirt on over his head. He had to tug the neckline away from the bandages covering his implant. “Tired. Head hurts, and it’s always disorienting having my implants offline. I’m too used to them.” He did an awkward shuffle to get into his pants, shimmying them up over his hips. Under normal circumstances Vector might have found the maneuver amusing or even enticing, but at the moment he was far too concerned about both Theron and Miranza to allow himself to be distracted by Theron’s ungainly efforts to dress himself. Theron caught Vector watching him and dredged up a weak smile before adding, “I’ll be fine. Just feeling a little shaky, ‘s’all.”

Theron needed a proper med centre equipped with kolto tanks and doctors who knew what they were doing. Being stranded in the middle of a swamp wasn’t going to help his injuries in the least, and Vector didn’t have the medical skills or the supplies necessary to treat him if his condition worsened. The last thing Theron needed was to go traipsing through a swamp trying to find and rescue Miranza. Stars, the last thing _Vector_ needed was to go traipsing through the swamp searching for his wife, but sitting and waiting certainly wasn’t going to resolve the situation in any beneficial way, and it wasn’t as though they could expect a rescue themselves. No one knew where they were; no one even knew they were in trouble. Vector couldn’t leave Theron behind to fend for himself and they couldn’t just stay here and wait. There were, so far as Vector could discern, no good choices, only awful ones that might hopefully result in him and Theron finding Miranza.

“Hey.” Theron’s hand on Vector’s arm was surprisingly warm; to Vector's chilled skin the touch felt hot, practically searing. The agent drummed up a reassuring smile, his fingers squeezing around Vector’s forearm. “We’ll find her.”

Vector nodded, ducking his head, the screams from his nightmare ringing in his ears again. He had faith in Miranza’s abilities to take care of herself, but his last conscious memory of her – unconscious, sagging against Ryshan – did little to assuage his fears. A part of him wanted to feel vindicated by his instinctive dislike of the pilot, as though some sixth sense had warned him against trusting the man, but the truth was that he had disliked Ryshan simply because Ryshan had been rude towards him. It wasn’t some special sensitivity granted to him by the Killiks but rather a natural response to someone who treated him with discourtesy. The pilot’s treatment of Miranza had done nothing to improve Vector’s low opinions of him, and even thinking of Ryshan with Miranza was enough to bring to mind the fierce possessiveness he had felt before – the anger that had stirred in him when he considered Ryshan’s desire for her.

Jealousy was not something the Killiks understood. All things were shared in the Hive; what benefited one Killik benefited the Nest as a whole, and something one treasured was correspondingly treasured by all. Even prior to his Joining, however, Vector had not ever seen himself as a particularly jealous or possessive man, and as he had come to reclaim the human part of himself this fact had not changed. His relationship with Miranza was, by necessity, an open one; it was an accepted element of her work as an Imperial agent that there would be times when she would be required to seduce and even sleep with an asset or a mark – on one particularly memorable occasion on Voss she had even needed to marry one such asset in order to achieve her goals. This didn’t bother Vector, and the two of them spoke at length about the nature and boundaries of their relationship. Neither of them equated love with sex; indeed, prior to relearning his humanity Vector had not even been certain sex would be a possibility for him, and both he and Miranza had been comfortable with that – although he was grateful to discover his Joining had not, in fact, neutered him. They were both perfectly happy to fall into bed with whatever willing partners they found – separately or together – and at no point had any of Miranza’s flirtations or seductions ever bothered Vector in the least.

So why in the galaxy had Ryshan bothered Vector so much? Was it just because he had been so dismissive of Vector himself? Vector didn’t think so; there had been others who had treated him similarly, and while they had never been anyone Miranza had actively been interested in (because at no point would Miranza ever have found it desirable for _anyone_ to be rude towards her husband) they had been seductions she had carried out in the name of her job. Vector knew Miranza had little interest in Ryshan – he honestly had to wonder at what _Theron_ saw in the man – and had slept with him as a means to an end, but still for some reason the pilot had brought forth a powerful sense of anger and jealousy in Vector. Powerful, yet completely out of character with the way Vector perceived himself – and now that the fog was lifted from his mind, he was able to look back on his feelings and wonder at their origin.

Had something been interfering with him? And if so, was it now gone – and how? – or should he consider himself to still be at risk? Vector tried to think back, to search his own memories for when this interference first came into play, but the timeline felt muddied. The only thing he could think of was that bizarre creature back on Nar Shaddaa, that horrific amalgamation of flesh and cybernetics and Force potential – and if that was the source of his anger, what did that mean for Theron? The creature had forced Vector to attack the SIS agent; was Theron therefore still at risk from him? Was Miranza likewise still under its influence?

Was Vector’s anger towards Ryshan entirely his own – a natural response to a man he considered crude and disrespectful – or was it the result of this outside influence? The rage he felt currently could be considered justified: the pilot had drugged and kidnapped his wife, and left Theron and Vector to die in a crashing shuttle. But was the anger entirely Vector’s, or was some unknown element nurturing it – and if so, to what end?

Another part of Vector wanted to be angry with Theron for introducing him and Miranza to the pilot, but he couldn’t blame Theron for it. Yes, it was Theron’s fault that Ryshan had been involved in the first place, but Vector knew the agent well enough to know that if Theron had had even the faintest _inkling_ of what Ryshan was capable of he would never have enlisted the man’s assistance. Theron wouldn’t have put Miranza or Vector in danger like this if he had known. He was frustratingly reckless with his _own_ life, but far more considerate of _theirs_.

Aware that Theron had spoken, Vector nodded, giving the other man what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Ordinarily he would have shared his concerns with Theron, but the confusion and unease in Theron’s aura held him back. The SIS agent was in no condition to be burdened with Vector’s fears and worries, especially when those fears and worries had no immediate solution or respite.

“We will find her,” Vector agreed, and did his best to put his concerns behind him for the time being. They had too many other things to worry about without adding his own fears that he was being controlled – or that he had been, because at present Vector felt as though he had somehow managed to shake loose that influence. His doubts and worries remained, however, and somewhere in the back of his mind Miranza kept on screaming.

O o O o O

Miranza wasn’t sure what she had been expecting to see once she and Ryshan reached their final destination, but the moment she saw the duracrete and durasteel compound rising up out of the swamp she had the strongest sense that she had been here before. Searching her memories, however, she couldn’t recall ever traveling to this unknown planet, nor could she conjure up even the faintest clue of what to expect beyond the durasteel gates. She chalked it up to déjà vu – she had, certainly, seen any number of out of the way compounds over the years, and that could be what she was remembering now – but the nagging sense of familiarity remained with her.

There were armed guards watching the gate, but they had clearly been expecting her and Ryshan, for the moment they approached them the gate began opening and the guards waved them through. Miranza could see that Ryshan was nervous – perhaps her earlier words to him, that his ‘employers’ were most likely just going to kill him, were starting to hit home – but he motioned for her to go in first, the control for the shock collar held aloft by way of warning. She debated the merits of making a grab for the control; he had been overly fond of using the collar on her, and there had been times when she had told herself if he did it _one more time_ she was going to shove the damned control up his ass, threat of electrocution be damned. Prudence and self-control had won out, however, although Ryshan had no idea how close it had come.

As the two of them approached the massive durasteel doors that led into the compound one of the doors swung open, and a severe-looking woman began walking towards them. Once again Miranza was struck by the sense that she knew this woman, and once again her memories provided no key as to the cause.

The woman was quite tall and had a spare elegance to her, bringing to mind all severe lines and sharp angles. She was older than Miranza by at least a decade or two, but still had a sort of girlish energy to her that showed in the straight line of her back and in the set of her shoulders. Her hair was dark and threaded through with liberal strands of white; it was pulled back in a tight bun that added to the pinched look of her face and left her broad forehead and high cheekbones exposed. Her eyes were steel-blue, and Miranza noted the deep lines around both her eyes and her mouth – lines that did not appear to have come from smiling and laughing, but rather from what seemed to be a habitual scowl that pulled the corners of her mouth in a downward angle. She wore a charcoal-coloured business suit perfectly tailored to her lean form, and the pointed heels on her feet looked sharp enough to puncture flesh. There was nothing warm or convivial about her, and Miranza felt an instinctive need to flinch away, as if expecting a harsh rebuke or perhaps even a slap.

“Welcome home, EV1750,” the woman intoned. Even her voice was hard, and despite her words Miranza heard nothing welcoming in it. “We’ve missed you.”

“Great,” said Ryshan, before Miranza could speak. He pushed in ahead of her, standing in front of the woman with his hands on his hips. “I brought her here, like Darmas asked. Do I go to you for my payment or …?”

The woman’s cold eyes darted towards Ryshan, and her look of disapproval deepened.

“We honour our agreements,” she said tartly, her mouth pinching as if she smelled something distasteful. Her gaze flickered towards the collar around Miranza’s throat, and she held her hand out to Ryshan, an imperious expression on her face. “The shock collar control, please.” The way she said the word ‘please’ implied rather heavily that it didn’t tend to frequent her vocabulary (and that in spite of its usage, this was not a request), but Ryshan handed the control over to her and then quickly stepped back again as if expecting her to attack him.

Miranza’s gaze took in the walls of the compound around her, the still-open door ahead, the relatively light security. She couldn’t see any cameras or recording devices, but that didn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t present, just well-hidden. The compound itself was half-buried underground, so while it appeared somewhat small on the outside there was no way to know how deep it ran, or how the surrounding swamplands affected its size and structure. There could, in theory, be an entire armed garrison hidden within the depths, or an army of oppressor droids waiting to spring into action. Or it could just be this woman and the two armed men at the gate, but that seemed suspiciously light. It was possible that whoever owned and maintained this compound was relying upon its obscurity to keep it safe; given that the planet itself wasn’t on any astrogation charts that Miranza knew of, someone had clearly gone to a considerable amount of time and effort to keep the location hidden. Obscurity wasn't a stand-in for proper security, however; Miranza felt certain there was more she couldn't see.

She turned slightly, ostensibly looking at Ryshan who had fallen in behind her again. He was dividing his time between staring at her and staring at the older woman, suspicion settling in behind his eyes although he kept a carefully smug expression on his face. Behind Ryshan Miranza could see the two guards, their backs to the courtyard as they continued surveying the landscape beyond the compound. Past the two guards were the still-open gates, leading Miranza to wonder if they were expecting more than just her and the pilot.

Looking back at the woman, Miranza was startled to see a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips. She was staring back at Miranza, her head cocked slightly to one side. Miranza was once again hit by the sense that she knew this woman, that she had seen this look before. It made her uneasy.

“We won’t be needing this, now will we, EV1750?” the woman said, holding the control up. Miranza’s eyes were drawn to it, and as she watched – half-expecting at any moment for the woman to hit the button that would cause the collar to zap her – the woman deactivated the collar. Miranza heard a barely audible click as the collar unlocked itself.

Behind her Ryshan made a disgusted sound; out of the corner of her eye she saw him throw his hands in the air in a gesture of annoyance. She reached up and pulled the collar free from her neck, feeling its solid weight in her hands. It was an older model, she saw, now that she could look at it: not as stream-lined and elegant as the ones being used on slaves in Imperial space, but rather clunky and heavier than it needed to be.

_Perfect,_ Miranza thought, and spun on her heel, turning toward Ryshan and smashing the collar into his face with all her might. There was a satisfying crunch as the hefty collar connected with his nose and Ryshan cried out, immediately doubling over in pain, his hands clutched to his face. Not waiting to see how the woman would respond, Miranza bolted towards the open gate, launching herself at the security guard on her left with every intention of dropping him and taking his blaster rifle.

Something heavy and solid slammed into her, driving her face-first into the ground. She sprawled, barely keeping her grip on the collar – her only available weapon – and quickly twisted around, watching as a shimmering figure came out of stealth. A man, tall and muscular, appeared above her, dodging before she could land another blow with the collar. He kicked at her hand, sending the collar flying out of her numbed fingers. A second kick caught her in the side, driving the air out of her lungs. She didn’t have time to recover before the man landed on her, straddling her hips and easily catching her wrists above her head.

The same familiarity she’d felt before flooded Miranza now as she looked up at the man pinning her to the ground. He was smiling but it didn’t reach his hard brown eyes and she knew instinctively that she had seen that malicious smile before.

“That was sloppy of you,” he said in a voice that dripped with venom.

A flash of memory.

_Harsh fingers curling in her hair, yanking her head back, exposing her throat._

_“Sloppy,” he purred in her ear, pinning her to the training mat. She hung her head, shame and embarrassment causing her cheeks to flush, and he shoved her back down, releasing her. “I’m not angry, Evie, I’m just disappointed. Now get up. Try it again. Break the hold or I’ll break your arm.”_

_She got up, pushing herself up off the mat with arms that trembled from exertion. They squared off again, his movements quick and sure, hers slow and dragging from the number of times he’d already succeeded in throwing her onto the mat. He moved in and grabbed her, and she was in the hold again, her arm bent behind her back, his fingers cruel and tight around her wrist._

_“Break the hold,” he told her, squeezing her wrist in warning, “or I’ll break your arm.”_

_She struggled, too exhausted to remember the maneuver he’d taught her, the key to freeing herself from his grip. He pulled her arm back, letting out a disgusted huff, and then when she still couldn’t break free he followed through on his threat._

_A harsh crack sounded throughout the training room, echoing off the bare walls. She bit through her lip to keep from screaming as he shoved her back onto the mat._

The echoes of long-ago pain rippled through her as the man bore down on her wrists, his full weight keeping her body pinned to the dirt. Somewhere in the courtyard behind her she could hear Ryshan trying to laugh through a broken and bloodied nose, and a few steps behind him the woman watched, unamused.

“Just bring her inside,” the woman snapped, pivoting on her heel and stalking towards the open door of the compound.

The man chuckled darkly, brown eyes full of spiteful glee. “Welcome home, Evie.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: This chapter has mentions of child prostitution and underage sexual grooming. (None of this is graphic.)

The discarded parachute – black silk tangled in the branches of a small tree – was the first clear indication that Vector and Theron were traveling in the right direction. Vector hadn’t chosen their course at random; Ryshan had been piloting the shuttle with a specific location in mind, and the ship had landed nose-first into the muddy swamp, pointing them where they needed to go. While it had occurred to Vector that Ryshan’s motivations certainly couldn’t trusted and he could very well have had a secondary location separate from where he was sending the shuttle, the ship’s trajectory was the only real information they had to go on. Unless Ryshan had a speeder tucked away somewhere (possible but unlikely; his decision to kidnap Miranza seemed to have been relatively spur-of-the-moment and planning ahead didn’t seem to be his forte) it seemed unlikely that the pilot would have staged the crash somewhere terribly far from wherever he was taking Miranza. Vector didn’t know what Ryshan had drugged Miranza with, but even as small as she was it would be difficult to carry her unconscious body through a swamp. Wherever he was taking her, it would have to be reasonably close.

Vector took the lead, his keen eyes more likely to pick out the trail they both were searching for. Behind him, Theron seemed more focused on staying upright than on tracking Miranza and Ryshan, and Vector’s concern for him grew. They were both tired – however long they had managed to sleep, it wasn’t nearly enough – but Theron was _exhausted,_ and more than that, he was a sweating, shivering mess. Vector felt a significant pang of guilt at forcing the other man to keep walking, but there was little he could do for Theron. Vector simply didn’t have the medical skill necessary to treat whatever was wrong with the agent, and their paltry supply of drugs clearly weren’t enough to handle whatever obvious infection Theron was fighting off.

As they walked, Vector was able to discern signs that Miranza had made an effort to leave a trail for them. Neither he nor his wife had much in the way of wilderness training – he didn’t know the extent of her education through Intelligence, but her skillset seemed better suited to working in highly populated urban areas, whereas the most he could claim were some tame outdoor adventures as a child, attending a ‘wilderness exploration camp’ for preteens. Whether or not Theron’s own training exceeded his, Vector couldn’t have said; at present Theron wasn’t offering much in the way of assistance. But the signs Miranza left were clear enough for Vector’s enhanced vision to pick up: a branch, broken in such a way as to be intentional rather than by accident; a small, booted footprint sunken in mud; a strip of cloth from Miranza’s shirt. She was conscious and she knew Vector and Theron would be looking for her. It gave Vector hope.

Pausing by another scrap of fabric – this time, he thought, from her trousers; he wondered how long it would be before Ryshan noticed her dwindling wardrobe, or if the pilot would simply be distracted by exposed skin – Vector turned and caught sight of Theron drooping down onto a rock, his head in his hands. The Joiner frowned, the hope he was feeling for his wife’s safe recovery temporarily dashed at the obvious evidence that Theron was flagging. He quickly strode back to join the other man, already rummaging around in his pack for their scarce supply of clean water.

“We know you’re tired, love, but you need to get up,” Vector said, handing Theron the flask. He couldn’t be certain, but he suspected it was too soon for Theron to take more of the painkillers or antibiotics – not that the broad-spectrum antibiotics appeared to be doing anything to help him.

Theron nodded, wincing, and gulped down half the contents of the flask before Vector had the chance to remind him that they needed to ration out their water supply. He lowered the bottle, wiping his mouth off on the back of his hand, and stood again, pushing up off the rock one-handed. Up close Vector could see that Theron was far too pale and the redness around his implants was getting worse. The muddy crimson streaks that persisted throughout Theron’s aura had deepened, taking on a sickly brown hue, but at the same time Vector could see the agent physically bolstering his resolve: determination and fierce courage rippled through his aura, in bold blues and deep, shimmering greens that sought to pull away the strands of sickness and weakness. Theron knew, as well as Vector did, that there was little they could do besides continue walking and trying to find Miranza. He wouldn't thank Vector for treating him with kid gloves any more than Miranza would have; it didn't seem to be in Vector's nature to fall in love with someone who _wasn't_ stubborn and determined.

“I’m okay,” Theron lied, handing the water flask back and ducking his head rather than meeting Vector’s gaze. His fingers, when they brushed Vector’s, were too warm and there was the faintest of tremors before he let his hand fall to his side. “Let’s get going.”

Vector wanted nothing more than to find a nice safe place to tuck Theron away in – along with a medical droid of some sort, and an entire med centre filled with competent staff and a decent kolto tank – but no such haven was to be forthcoming. His eyes lingering on the hopeful colours painting Theron’s aura, Vector nodded and resumed scanning for traces of Miranza’s trail.

O o O o O

The urge to struggle – to make another break for it and try to get past the guards – was powerful, but Miranza funnelled that energy into keeping her back straight and her head held high as the man and woman led her inside the compound. Behind them trailed Ryshan, one hand still clutched to his bloodied nose, his eyes boring holes in Miranza’s back.

Miranza didn’t waste her energy on violence. The dark-haired woman was an unknown entity, but it was already clear that Miranza couldn’t take the man in a fair fight (and exhausted, still fighting off the lingering traces of whatever Ryshan had drugged her with, and with the minor bumps and bruises she had acquired from her brief skirmish with the man - none of that in any way contributed towards making it a fair fight) and Ryshan was probably dying for his own opportunity to land a few blows in retaliation for his broken nose. Instead, she focused on taking in her surroundings: the narrow corridor that led deeper underground, the low ceilings, the dim lighting, the apparent lack of security (that she could see – she was under no illusions that the security didn’t exist). In the back of her mind she could still hear Watcher X’s voice – not the hallucination of him she’d had while battling against her brainwashing, but the first things he’d said to her when she had met him on Nar Shaddaa: _“Step inside. Scan the apartment for the important things: overt threats, escape routes, access terminals. Now look again. Scan for concealed weapons. Hiding places. Anything innocent is probably a bug; anything you don’t recognize should probably be analyzed later. Play the game.” Play the game._ It was instinct; she didn’t need his memory admonishing her to do what she had spent most of her life training and practicing.

The woman walked ahead as though confident that Miranza would follow her. Beside her, turning every so often to give Miranza an assessing glance, walked the man. He was tall, perhaps even taller than Vector (admittedly Miranza didn’t consider herself a good judge of height: most everyone else registered as simply “taller than her”), but built more like Theron, all broad shoulders and trim hips. He was what might best be referred to as “tall, dark and handsome,” but in an oddly bland sort of way: despite his attractiveness, Miranza had no doubt he could easily fade into the background, and there was nothing immediately memorable about his appearance.

And yet, she _did_ remember him. Not well, no, but … flickering memories, darting from her grasp whenever she tried to focus solidly on them. Glimpses, here and there, of moments she had spent in his company. Memories that made her afraid; moments that bore further consideration. Vector would have taken such memories back to the Hive and meditated on them. SCORPIO – bless her cold, callous metallic heart – would have done her best to break down and analyze every element of every interaction Miranza could recall. All Miranza could do was keep her eye on the man and try, desperately, to remember more.

At last the woman came to a stop outside a set of double doors – much smaller than the ones leading into the compound – and Miranza watched as she keyed in some numbers on a security pad. The keypad flashed green and there was a soft beep before the doors swung inward. Miranza mentally filed the numbers away, although she was cognizant of the fact that the woman had to have been aware she’d be paying attention to something like this. If not the woman, then certainly the man who accompanied her. If Miranza was able to see the security codes in place, it was because the woman and man were letting her see them. She wasn't so foolish as to think they weren't completely aware of who and what she was.

“Welcome home, Evie,” the man said again, bowing mockingly in front of the open doors.

“That’s not my name,” Miranza snapped, falling in behind the woman as she headed inside.

The woman paused, glancing back at Miranza. Her steel-blue eyes were cold, and when she spoke Miranza could practically feel the temperature in the corridor dropping a few degrees. “It _is_ your name, EV1750. It is the first name you were ever given, and the only name that matters. Miranza Gerrick? Cipher Nine? Legate? These names are a polite fiction, a mask to cover up the creature we designed.”

“’The creature you designed,’” Miranza repeated dully. “You make it sound like I’m some kind of lab experiment.” She followed the woman into the room, which appeared to be a sort of reception area not unlike the one for the brothel on Nar Shaddaa. Like that reception area, there were doors leading off in all four directions; unlike the brothel, however, all the doors were durasteel and she could see holocams mounted over every entrance. No security guards, however - but that didn't mean they didn't exist.

The man made a sound of disgust, pushing past Miranza and the woman to head into one of the side rooms. He paused long enough to hold the door open for the dark-haired woman, but his eyes on Miranza were filled with anger. Behind them Ryshan tried to catch their attention, and Miranza and the other woman both turned to him with matching expressions of annoyance.

“Yes?” the woman intoned, the frost still in her voice.

“My payment?” Ryshan asked pointedly. He glared at Miranza. “I delivered the goods. I usually get paid at this point.”

Snorting, the man rolled his eyes and motioned for Ryshan to follow him. After a moment of apprehension the smuggler did so, although Miranza could see him weighing the decision carefully (probably more carefully than he had weighed any of the decisions leading up to that one). A part of her hoped the man was leading Ryshan away to put a blaster bolt between his eyes – while another, larger part of her wanted to save that pleasure for herself.

Through the next door Miranza watched Ryshan and the dark-haired man head off down another hallway, but the woman led her in a different direction, turning left almost immediately and guiding Miranza down a narrow corridor that was flanked on all sides by closed durasteel doors. These doors all had keypads in front of them, and Miranza wondered if the same code the woman had used before would work on them, or if each door had its own separate keycode. She’d never once seen a closed, locked door and not immediately wanted to know what was behind it.

At last the woman led Miranza into a surprisingly cozy office, the sort of private space she might have expected to find in one of the more well-heeled apartments on Dromund Kaas. The walls were lined with bookshelves – some with actual bound books on them, as well as an assortment of datapads and curio – and there was a large wooden desk in the middle of the room. A small bank of monitors sat on the desk, along with the standard office supplies: notepads, datapads, styluses and other such things. The woman motioned for Miranza to help herself to one of the chairs in front of the desk, and then moved around it herself, sitting down gracefully in the chair opposite her.

Miranza didn’t know what to do with this measure of civility. She was mentally calculating the number of steps between this office and the exit; the guards, the holo-recorders, the locked doors, not to mention both Ryshan and the dark-haired man. Behind the desk the woman studied her, something perilously close to approval flickering behind her hard eyes.

“You could try to escape,” the woman commented, gesturing toward the still-open door. “You could stab me with one of the styluses, or simply make a break for it. Of course, that didn’t work out so well for you before, did it? And now you’re here, in the heart of the complex – how far do you think you’ll get? Do you think you’ve taken note of all the security? Do you think RJ0043 is the only person here with a stealth generator?”

“RJ0043?” Miranza repeated, finally sitting in the proffered chair. “Is that the man who attacked me?”

The woman nodded. “Did he seem familiar to you? Do I?”

Miranza leaned forward, picking up one of the styluses off the desk and twirling it idly between her fingers. She was mindful of the woman’s comments; she could, in fact, quite easily stab the woman with the stylus, or attempt to take her hostage and use her as leverage to escape the compound, or even just get up and run – but the woman was right. Attempting escape hadn’t worked out terribly well less than half an hour ago, and she didn’t know that she had marked all the security features the compound had to offer. And RJ0043 – what was _with_ the naming conventions in this place? – could be anywhere, with or without Ryshan, and Miranza was confident he wouldn’t be the only assailant capable of hiding himself with stealth tech. So far she was relatively uninjured and hale, and she’d like to stay that way. Getting herself captured again – worse, getting herself beat up or incapacitated – made it that much more unlikely that she’d be escaping under her own steam.

Still twirling the stylus between her fingers – the woman’s eyes followed it – Miranza sat back in her chair, affecting a relaxed pose. She gave the woman an arch look. “Am I supposed to recognize you?”

“Given the number of times your mind has been twisted inside-out and pieced back together again, I’m surprised you can recognize yourself,” the woman retorted, tearing her eyes away from the stylus to look up at Miranza. She let out an indignant snort, giving Miranza a bitter smile. “The directives regarding you were very clear. Intelligence should have known better than to go muddling about inside your head. If Jadus hadn’t …”

“What about Jadus?” Miranza asked, when the woman’s voice trailed off uncertainly. Her hand fell still, the stylus caught between her index and ring finger mid-spin, and with a careless gesture she tossed it onto the desk where it settled neatly in front of the woman. The quiet thump the stylus made when it landed was enough to startle the woman out of her reverie.

_Darth Jadus._ Miranza hadn’t thought about the dead Dark Council member in some time, but it had been his death – his _first_ death, the one he’d faked aboard the Imperial dreadnaught _Dominator_ – that had pulled Miranza into the conspiracy that had nearly torn her life asunder. In stopping him, she had threatened the safety and sanctity of the Dark Council, and the other Council members had demanded that Imperial Intelligence execute her. The man she had first known as Keeper, then later as the Minister of Intelligence, had pleaded clemency for her, and instead of death she’d been placed under the bonds of the Castellan restraints. Were it not for Darth Jadus, Miranza might never have fallen into the hands of the Star Cabal and might never have been able to unravel their millennia-old conspiracy.

It was, she knew, a mixed bag: on the one hand, without Jadus’s machinations Miranza’s life would have been considerably easier, if not safer – at no point could she ever fool herself into believing that she, as a cipher agent, would have led an easy or safe life, but without Jadus she might never have had to contend with being brainwashed and used by enemies of the Empire. On the other hand, however, without Jadus she might never have met Vector, and what she shared with her Joiner husband more than made up for all the grief and pain she had experienced over the past few years.

_Please let Vector and Theron be all right. Please let them be safe._

“Darth Jadus was one of the overseers of this project,” the woman answered, oblivious to Miranza’s thoughts. Her gaze drifted towards the monitors on her desk, then back to Miranza. At Miranza’s surprised expression her bitter smile widened, growing fierce. “What, you think something like this grows in a vacuum? That Intelligence isn’t aware of this place?”

Indeed, that was essentially precisely what Miranza had thought. She was relatively certain that Lana Beniko, now the current Minister of Sith Intelligence, had absolutely no idea what any of this was; she was equally certain that Lana, pragmatic though she might be, would not have sent Miranza after Theron if at any point she had thought it might somehow end up compromising her to this extent. If Lana knew of this place – if Lana knew of Miranza’s apparent connection to it – Miranza had no doubt the Sith Lord would have done everything in her power to keep Miranza away.

Miranza stayed silent, however, and the woman across the desk from her felt compelled to fill that silence.

“This project has been ongoing for decades,” the woman continued. “A natural extension of the Watcher program: creating the perfect agents for every field.” She sat back, looking smug. “Why rely upon recruitment and conscription when we can start from scratch and build precisely the sort of operative we require? Rather than start with an adult – or some inferior alien race – and have to force them to unlearn all sorts of bad habits and poor training, instead we can begin training from infancy and early childhood, and from that tailor our operatives to our specific needs.”

Thinking back to Hutta and the slave auction, Miranza nodded slowly. Gran, that poor elderly Evocii woman whose death lay squarely at Miranza’s feet, had spoken of taking care of infants and small children. Slaves and the children of slaves could be traded and sold, and no one would care what happened to them. She wondered if there were similar auctions on other planets – of course there were, there had to be – and how many children the Empire had purchased for this exact purpose.

“So I was a slave? My parents were slaves?”

“Your parents?” The woman laughed, blue-grey eyes flashing as she shook her head. “You misunderstand. While it’s true that the majority of our … recruits … were taken as children, the project is so much more than that. You were never one of those impure and unpedigreed mongrels. We _made_ you.”

_Made me?_ Miranza blinked, icy fear tearing through her. No, this wasn’t right – she would have known. She’d spent far too much time in med centres and under the knife for her to be anything less (or more) than human. Doctor Lokin would have noticed, would have said something, if he had found anything out of place in her medical files. And droid technology was nowhere near advanced enough for them to have created a droid who could pass for human. She didn’t even have any cybernetic implants: she’d long ago removed the chip that Watcher X had installed to enable her to pass as a droid (and if she’d _been_ a droid such a chip would not have been necessary), and the only other implant she had was the mandatory contraceptive that all Intelligence agents had. She was human. She wasn’t –

“You still don’t understand,” said the woman quietly, as Miranza was unable to keep her confusion and terror from expressing itself on her face. “You – and the others like you – were created much as the Watchers were created: genes spliced and manipulated, cells engineered and altered, the product of extensive conditioning and eugenic control. Your parents are nothing more than genetic material, compiled from dozens of donors and weaved together to create the perfect operative, the perfect soldier.”

Even as her mind reeled from this revelation Miranza couldn’t help but notice the faintest hitch when the woman referred to ‘donors,’ and it occurred to her that the word was merely a euphemism. She doubted very much that her parents – whoever they might be, however many of them there might have been – had had any say in the ‘donation’ of their genetic material. She wondered if they even knew they had a ‘daughter’ (or possibly – _probably_ – multiple ‘children’), or if any of them were even alive to learn of it.

“So, that's it, then … I’m a science experiment?” It occurred to her that Vector had handled this much better than she had, when he had learned the truth behind his Joining and the involvement of Project Protean. Or had he simply hidden his inner turmoil behind Killik detachment? She hadn't known him as well then; she hadn't been as gifted at reading him as she was now.

“One of many,” the woman confirmed, nodding. “And one of the more successful.” She made a small moue of distaste. “Our other experiments with alien DNA proved less … efficacious. Attempts to splice in the genes of aliens with more useful skills and attributes simply resulted in further proof of the inherent inferiority of sub-species. Although …” – her voice grew pensive – “… the human experiments themselves were not without flaws. Not all of our children turned out as stable as you.”

“How so?” Miranza thought she was making a credible effort of sounding calm and detached; it was easier if she pretended the woman wasn’t referring to her, specifically, but to an abstract concept. Some other girl – EV1750, perhaps, because surely that wasn't _her_ – who wasn’t really Miranza.

“There was a propensity for mental instability,” the woman said, giving an airy wave as if this were inconsequential. “Psychosis, violent episodes, that sort of thing. Fortunately these issues tended to manifest early, so we were able to eradicate the problems straight away rather than waste years training the children only to have to put them down as adults. That would have been a substantial loss.” The way she said it made it clear to Miranza that she didn’t mean the loss of life, but rather the loss of all of the time, money and effort that would have gone into caring for and instructing these ‘unstable’ candidates. It was equally clear that to this woman, the children created by the program were not truly human, and their destruction – for that was surely what she meant by ‘eradicating the problems’ – did not constitute a loss of life to her. They were simply defective products that had needed to be destroyed lest their deficiencies interfere with the overall success of the program.

_Mental instability._ The words made Miranza wonder, causing her to flash back on the hallucinations she had experienced in the wake of her discovery of the Castellan restraints. When it had happened she had assumed it had to do with the brainwashing technique itself, or perhaps was the result of the chip Watcher X had installed along her spinal column. But what if it was due to some quirk of her genetics, some failing of the way she had been … _created._ Her mind rebelled against that word; she was a person, not something thrown together in a petri dish.

“We could never be certain if the instabilities were the result of the genetic manipulation, or the mental blocks and channels placed on you,” said the woman. “Our testing could never be completely sterile and unadulterated, after all – we didn’t want an army of clones, we wanted separate and individual assets that we could send out into the world. Twins, here and there, would not be inherently suspicious, but quintuplets or octuplets would certainly draw attention. So we had no way of knowing which genetic combinations would work best until you were viable entities. We knew certain batches of genetic material were superior to others, of course, and genes were spliced for the variable desirable traits we required: intelligence, attractiveness, loyalty and so on. But outside of that, we wouldn’t know which specific combinations were ideal until you reached puberty.”

Miranza had so many questions, she didn’t even know where to start. Blocks and channels? Clones? Viable entities? It all sounded so clinical and sterile that it was difficult to connect it to her own life, or in any way accept that it had anything to do with her. But finally the woman’s last word pierced the confusion that had settled over her, and Miranza gave herself a small shake.

“Puberty,” she repeated dully. “Would that be before or after you sent us to that … that brothel on Nar Shaddaa?”

The woman had the grace to look abashed, and she bowed her head, nodding. Once again her eyes darted towards the monitors - a nervous tic, perhaps, an excuse to look away from the blonde agent who was questioning her. “That was … a regrettable necessity of your education,” she said grudgingly.

“Explain.” Miranza folded her arms across her chest, aware that her expression had become hard and unforgiving. It was better than letting the woman see what was really behind her cold blue eyes: the shame and fear that filled her at the knowledge of what Theron had unwittingly uncovered, that horrible file with the picture of her as a child, and the dark, terrible details contained within.

“Viable candidates were to be trained as spies,” the woman said, straightening her shoulders as she appeared to regain her nerve. “Manipulation and seduction were a necessary part of the skillset. We couldn’t be certain how early you would be called to perform in the field, so it was determined that certain aspects of your education needed to be addressed sooner than others. Once that determination was made, it naturally occurred to … to _some_ … that a dual purpose might be served: our assets would receive training in seduction and the necessary knowledge of sexual activity, while at the same time we could build a portfolio of blackmail information.”

_“Explain,”_ Miranza said again, her voice harder. She leaned forward, helping herself to a stack of business cards that had been sitting in a decorative card-holder made to look like the sweeping arch of a bird’s wings. The business cards were remarkably plain, bearing only a name – Madalin Grayth – and what looked like the codes for a secure HoloNet frequency. She assumed the woman across from her was Madalin.

The woman grimaced, pinching the bridge of her nose with the fingers of one hand, her eyes closed. “There are always going to be some unsavory types who take their pleasure in the illegal and illicit. The training facility on Nar Shaddaa –”

“The brothel, you mean,” Miranza corrected.

“The _training facility,”_ the woman repeated forcefully, opening her eyes and glaring at her, “provided an outlet for those desires while offering our assets the opportunity to hone their skills. We recorded the encounters –” Miranza’s audible hiss made the woman wince “—to use as blackmail down the line. No harm ever came to any of you! There were attendants to ensure the … the marks didn’t hurt you, your memories were wiped after every event –”

“What purpose did that serve, then, if the intent was to _train_ us?” Miranza forebear to comment on the ‘none of you were ever harmed’ comment, as that was patently ludicrous bullshit: they were _children._ Whether or not the ‘marks’ treated them kindly was irrelevant. She was starting to reconsider whether or not she wanted to make it out of the compound alive, because the desire to smash the woman’s face against the desk and beat her to a bloody pulp was becoming overwhelming. Miranza knew she could do it – all she had to do was reach over the desk and grab the woman by her sleek black-and-silver bun – but she didn’t think she’d survive long after killing her.

“The memory wipes were selective, of course,” the woman replied, as if it should have been obvious. She was clearly struggling to maintain her composure in the face of Miranza’s growing ire, and she held herself with rigid control, meeting Miranza’s furious gaze directly. “You retained the skills and knowledge you gained from your encounters while losing the emotions and … and …”

“You were prostituting _children,”_ Miranza hissed, flicking one of the business cards at the woman. The woman flinched when it bounced off her chest and was followed by another card that struck her shoulder. “We weren’t being trained. We were being _sold,_ as chattel, to service perverts and monsters so that _you_ could have blackmail material against them.”

“You weren’t children,” the woman snapped, batting away the next card before it could strike her in the face. “You were property. _Assets._ You were a combination of genetic material spliced together in a lab. We made you. We _owned_ you.” Standing up, she glowered down at Miranza, her hands on her hips. “We still own you, EV1750. Don’t let your recent freedom go to your head. You’re still very much a part of this program.”

“My name,” Miranza said through gritted teeth, every instinct in her body screaming out at her to launch herself across the table and throttle the woman, “is not EV1750. It’s Miranza Gerrick, and I am not your fucking _asset.”_

“Oh please.” The woman sank back down in her seat and rolled her eyes. “Your design patent is on file at the Citadel.”

Miranza fell back in her seat, the cards spilling out onto the desk and falling to the floor. Her hands were shaking – part nerves, part adrenaline – and it took all of her energy to keep herself from screaming and attacking the woman. The woman, for her part, seemed to deflate a little, and she reached out to begin scooping up some of the cards and putting them back into the holder, sliding them into the spot nestled between the bird’s wings.

“Damn Staxon,” the woman muttered. “His greed and carelessness were what led to this.”

“Because he was trying to defect?”

The woman laughed, and it was a mirthless, hollow sound. “Defect? He was fleeing prosecution. The training facility on Nar Shaddaa was his project and he got greedy. Rather than utilizing our assets on actionable targets, he began to focus on making himself rich, and became careless with who he sent to the facility. Assets were injured, people started to talk, and we barely had time to clean everything up before he was on the run. He was in hiding for years before he decided to approach the Republic for clemency – that was how we located him. Why Intelligence sent someone after him.”

“Sent _me_ after him,” Miranza clarified, and while she felt better for knowing she had killed Staxon, the fact that he had met his fate while fucking her made her sick to her stomach. Normally such a thing – seducing a target and then killing them mid-coitus – wouldn’t have bothered her in the least, but the knowledge that she had unwittingly seduced a man who had prostituted her as a child made her feel tainted and shameful. It was sick. This whole thing was sick.

“That was a mistake,” the woman said, sighing. “You should never have been involved in any of this. One of the many fuck-ups since Darth Jadus’s death.” The vulgarity seemed out of place and unnatural coming from this prim, sophisticated woman, and it made Miranza blink. The woman didn’t appear to notice, too focused on her tirade. “Jadus’s activities nearly exposed all of us and put the project at risk – put _you_ at risk. If he had been alive he would have ensured you were never subjected to the Castellan restraint program. He would have kept a better handle on the assignments you were given. Instead, his interest in you – he knew precisely who and what you were, of course – caused him to want to bring you into his own projects, which led to –”

“Which led to me killing him,” Miranza interrupted, “after he made me help him murder over ten thousand Imperial citizens.” Eradication Day was an event that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life, and she still wasn’t certain whether or not she had made the right choice. At the time she had believed it necessary – she could have stopped the Eradicators, but Jadus would have escaped, and who knows what havoc he would have unleashed upon the Empire? How many more would have died thanks to his machinations and schemes? “I’m going to assume that wasn’t a part of your grand plan.”

The woman scowled at Miranza’s facetious tone. “Of course it wasn’t a part of the plan. Believe me, we had no idea Jadus intended any of that, no more than we knew that Admiral Staxon intended to use the Nar Shaddaa facility to make himself rich.”

“You should keep a closer eye on your people, then,” Miranza replied tartly. “Running around all willy-nilly, making a mess of things.” She sobered, fighting to control the many emotions running rampant throughout her. She wondered what Vector would have detected in her aura, if he had been there to see her. “Why are you even telling me all of this? For a super-secret spy cloning facility you’re not really good at keeping secrets.”

“We don’t do the genetic engineering here – and it’s _not_ cloning, I already told you that!” Schooling her expression, the woman gave a small shrug, her eyes glittering with what looked to Miranza to be suspiciously close to amusement. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what I tell you – or don’t tell you. You won’t remember any of this conversation. We’ll wipe your memories and send you back to Intelligence for your next assignment.”

“Why in the _galaxy_ would I let you do that?”

“Because,” the woman said smugly, turning the monitor around so that Miranza could see what was displayed on the viewscreen, “We have your husband and the Republic spy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was a huuuuuge info-dump of a chapter. :P I had planned on dragging some of it out over several parts, but in the end I opted for a "rip the Band-Aid off" approach instead.

**Author's Note:**

> As stated elsewhere, "Past Imperfect" is on indefinite hiatus (I kind of wrote myself into a corner here), but the story continues in "Immortals," also found here on AO3.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/salaciouscrumpet


End file.
